has anyone gone to the H&M here?

I heard that this was one of the lucky stores to get the collection!

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By Rachel Sanderson
LONDON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Frenzied shoppers stripped mannequins bare at H&M (HMb.ST: , , ) stores on Thursday as the world's third largest fashion retailer put on sale a capsule collection by Italian designer Roberto Cavalli.

Scrambling for an affordable slice of the "king of animal prints" worn by stars like Paris Hilton, fashion fans around world indicated there is no let up to the global craze for celebrity-designed, celebrity look-alike fashion. Zeynep Tune, 22, Cigdem Keles, 24, and her sister Gamze Keles, 23, queued from 7 a.m. (0700 GMT) outside H&M's London flagship store at Oxford Circus to buy the entire collection three times over -- one piece each for each of them.



Leopard print maxi-dresses and gold-coloured evening purses spilling from their arms, they said they didn't mind if they ended up all looking the same.

"We'd only do this for Cavalli. We love him," said Cigdem Keles flushed and bright eyed after fighting off other shoppers to grab more than 500 pounds ($1,050) worth of clothes.

In New York, more than 100 people lined up outside H&M on New York's Fifth Avenue eager to get their hands on Cavalli's trademark leopard prints and gold glitter at cheaper prices.
A bronze pleated evening gown from the collection costs 299 euros ($437.60) and is H&M's most expensive frock ever. But it's cheap compared with a 2,000 euro dress from Cavalli's own fashion house.


Francis Stewart, 24, and her 12-year-old cousin Margaret Baldwin were at the front of the line having camped out overnight in temperatures of about 4 degrees Celsius.

"We just love Cavalli's prints and his dresses. We wouldn't have missed this. It really didn't get that cold until about 5 a.m.," a shivering Stewart told Reuters.

TIE UP PROFIT


Cavalli for H&M is one of the company's biggest tie-ups and follows success with Stella McCartney and design duo Viktor & Rolf that helped boost profits for the world's biggest apparel retailer after Zara owner Inditex and The Gap.

H&M, which is marking 60 years in business, reported a 17 percent rise in third-quarter pre-tax profit in September to $674 million.
The collection is priced at a fraction of the designer's normal ready-to-wear charges, helped by H&M using producers in Romania, China and Turkey instead of the Italian manufacturers Cavalli uses for his own couture collections.
Luca Solca, an analyst at Bernstein Research, said he expected H&M to perform strongly through the end of this year and into the next thanks to launch of the Cavalli collection and the expansion of its online sales.


"It has been a success in all markets, a strong and even sales pattern over the whole world," H&M spokeswoman Kristina Stenvinkel told Reuters from H&M's headquarters in Stockholm.

Local Swedish paper Svenska Dagbladet said several hundred people queuing before store in central Stockholm opened and the collection sold out in a few minutes.

Back in London, one sales assistant, who wanted to remain anonymous, described a rush of hundreds of shoppers down the steps of the store when the doors opened. "It was terrifying, like a rugby scrum," she said while guarding a mannequin to stop shoppers ripping the clothes from its back. (Additional reporting by Belinda Goldsmith in New York and Rebecka Roos in Stockholm, Editing by Paul Casciato)

H&M teams with Italian designer Roberto Cavalli
Roberto Cavalli, budget-friendly store collaborate
Joanne BlainVancouver Sun
Saturday, October 13, 2007

If you thought opening day at the new H&M store in Coquitlam Centre was a mob scene, just wait until Nov. 8.
That's when the Swedish chain offers up the Roberto Cavalli collection, its latest budget-friendly collaboration with a top international designer.
The Coquitlam store, which opened in late August, is one of just 200 of the 1,400 or so H&M outlets around the world that will get the Cavalli creations.
The line includes women's and men's clothing, accessories and lingerie, and it's likely to reflect the Italian designer's penchant for glamorous, sexy looks featuring lots of animal prints and leather.
He's a favourite of fashion-loving celebrities like Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Lenny Kravitz and Victoria Beckham. Cavalli is also designing all the costumes for Beckham and the rest of the Spice Girls for their upcoming reunion tour.
The Florence-born designer isn't shy of controversy. He was one of the first big names to sign Kate Moss to a modelling contract after her 2005 cocaine-snorting scandal and rehab stint -- and after she had been dropped by a number of designers and retailers, including H&M.
Cavalli has also employed Moss's former boyfriend, Pete Doherty, who has had a number of well-publicized drug arrests.
The entire Cavalli collection for H&M will be unveiled at an Oct. 25 fashion show in Rome.
But if history repeats itself, it won't be on the racks for long. H&M's past collaborations with top designers like Stella McCartney and Karl Lagerfeld have been snapped up immediately.
Last year's Viktor & Rolf collection was all but gone within 15 minutes, says H&M spokesperson Laura Shankland.
So, if you hope to snag something from the Cavalli collection, be prepared to line up in the wee hours at the Coquitlam store -- and consider wearing elbow pads.
H&M is in the midst of its expansion into western Canada and it plans to open a three-storey flagship store in downtown Vancouver's Pacific Centre next spring.

the commercial!!!

wow thats awesome! did anyone actuallly went and got something?

if they didn't its probably sold out

apparently the collection has sold out in a matter of hours across the world

people going crazy for cavalli

the billboards around the city look great

omg. i wanted to go...-_- but i had school..boo..no point going on friday....everything was prob gone in 15 mins.

yah i was reading on the style spy blog that she was in montreal and the only thing she got was an XL sweater

she said people were ripping clothes off the mannequins and the stuff sold out in minutes

and felt lucky to get two items

Wow..that's pretty crazy

"everything was prob gone in 15 mins"

make that less than 10 minutes....if u read the article someone got like $1000 dollars of clothes!!! MADNESS!

Crowds flock to buy clothes as Roberto Cavalli and H&M launch retail line

1 day ago
TORONTO - It's a dark, cold November morning, and 6 a.m. doesn't seem like the time to be thinking about shopping for light, breezy dresses and sleek suits with leopard-print details.
But don't tell that to the people who lined up outside the Eaton Centre location Thursday for the launch of H&M's latest designer collaboration with Roberto Cavalli.
"We've been here since 4:45 a.m.," said Sammi Wong, 20, one of the first few people in line. She had come from Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., to make it to the sale and had been planning the trip for two months. As for the most sought-after items when the store opened at 10 a.m., another earlybird said "pretty dresses, skinny jeans, shoes ... anything amazing."
Repeating the success the retailer has experienced with previous designer capsule collections by such icons as Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and the Dutch duo Viktor and Rolf, Cavalli's line features his signature style. Rock-star flair, sumptuous details and animal prints are key to the Italian designer's runway clothes as well as the H&M line.
"It's very different from our previous designer collections," says Laura Shankland, H&M's advertising and PR contact for Toronto. "There's everything from your really glamorous red carpet dresses to jeans."
One gold-sheened dress with an empire waist and pleated floor-length skirt features eight metres of material. Skinny and boot-cut dark wash jeans are embellished with gold stitching. Trench coats come in basic black (with gold beading along the lapels) or the more outrageous zebra print.
A lot of Cavalli's collection is inspired by celebrity designs that he has done for the red carpet. A gold sequined minidress with a fringe hem is reminiscent of a Cavalli dress worn by Scarlett Johansson, while the "Mischa" military-style jacket is named for its celebrity wearer, Mischa Barton. The zebra trench style has been spotted on Halle Berry.
These key, limited edition items were the first ones ripped off the racks in the Eaton Centre location.
"Stella was real street-cool, Karl Lagerfeld is the master of couture, Viktor and Rolf was very much quirky tailoring and Cavalli is a decadent party collection," Shankland explained.
But that doesn't mean it can't be worn in everyday life. In addition to jeans, the collection includes blouses and pantsuits - trendy and glamorous done as accessible to the masses.
Unlike the previous designer collections, Cavalli's line will make it further across Canada, since H&M is now available in more markets. "This is our highest level of fashion clothing. We've learnt from experience this sells better in bigger city stores," said Shankland.
"This'll be the first time in British Columbia they actually get the collection," said Shankland. "Last year in the lineup (for Viktor and Rolf in Toronto), we had people who had flown in from British Columbia, from Calgary, from Edmonton."
The H&M special collections have a reputation for selling out quickly, and by 5 p.m. EST on Thursday, Shankland said in an e-mail that this one was a huge success and "mostly but not completely sold out in Canada."
McCartney's line sold out in Toronto in 15 minutes. Lagerfeld's sold out worldwide within hours. But for those who missed out, McCartney and Viktor and Rolf items showed up on sites like EBay mere hours after being sold in the stores. Fashionistas seeking the mere thrill of owning a designer item didn't have to wait in line, if they had the means to ride out an online bidding war.
"Of course we'd always prefer it's sold through H&M," said Shankland. "But you can't control that. In general, speaking to customers at our previous designer launches, they love it. It's so accessible. People do collect it, they've collected from when we did the Karl Lagerfeld, Stella ... Every collection is so different."
Blouses and dresses were literally flying off the racks at the Eaton Centre location Thursday morning. The menswear items were going at a slower rate. Further back, in the regular departments, groups clustered to trade their armloads of wares.
"I've got that dress in a 6. I'll trade you for the leather jacket in a 4," was overheard from one group. Few seemed to be trying anything on, but the fitting rooms were still jammed.
Wong, as she stood at the cash register, listed her purchases.
"Three gold lame dresses in two 6s and an 8. I got the leopard dresses in two 8s and a 12, I got this (fur jacket) in a 6, and I got the manrobes two size smalls," she said.
The register was reading over $1,700 and they were still ringing up her items.
"I'm happy that I got something but I'm disappointed I didn't get what I wanted."
She missed out on the sequined Scarlett dress. She offered to trade one of the gold dresses with the next person over at the cash registers, but it was no sale.

some pics from germany