H&M was founded by Erling Persson (Persson), a salesman from Västerås , Sweden. In 1947, on a visit to the US, Persson was attracted by the concept of clothes stores selling stylish garments at low prices. Following a similar concept, he opened a store selling clothes for women in Västerås in 1947, and named the store 'Hennes' (hers in Swedish). The low prices immediately attracted customers. The stores were expanded during the 1950s and the 1960s. Persson was confident that the concept would work as well in other countries, and in 1964, the company ventured overseas by opening a store in Norway. This was followed by a store in Denmark in 1967...

Idea Generation and Design

Initially, H&M sourced the products mostly from its agents in Asian countries and sold them through its stores. In the late 1980s, after Bosch joined the company, H&M began building a design team to take to the stores the products that customers were demanding...

Production

Initially, all the production activities of H&M took place in Sweden. In the 1960s, production was carried out in other Scandinavian countries and in the UK. In the late 1960s, some of the production activities were shifted to southern European countries like Italy and Portugal. By the early 1970s, H&M was also producing in Hungary, Poland, and erstwhile Yugoslavia. In 1978, H&M ventured into the Far Eastern countries with a production office in Hong Kong. As of 2000, H&M had 21 production offices, of which 10 were in Europe, 10 in the Far East, and one in Africa...