When the Swedish apparel retailer signed up Karl Lagerfeld to design a limited-time collection in 2004, it raised hackles in haute couture circles. But after the entire Karl Lagerfeld x H&M collection sold out in a few hours, H&M never looked back. For the ensuing 20 years, it signed deals with a who’s who of runway legends including Stella McCartney, Sonia Rykiel, Versace, and Balmain.
Last week, H&M announced yet another collaboration. But something’s different this time out. The creative guest isn’t a Paris couturier—it’s a TV show.
HBO Original Series’ The White Lotus peers at the peccadillos of the guests and employees of a fictional luxe resort bearing the show’s name. And while the characters aren’t always beautiful, their outfits are. H&M’s 25-piece collection of chiffon dresses, ruffle-trimmed pants, and chromatic kaftans took its creative cues from the show, which drew an audience of 2.4 million for its season three premiere. Most of the goods are already sold out.
But H&M’s latest collab is significant for more than its sales. It’s the latest example of fashion’s cult of collaboration stretching to include media properties.
On the same day that the White Lotus collection debuted, J. Crew announced a line created with The New Yorker. Universal’s 2024 film Wicked saw capsule collections with clothing brands including Zac Posen and Bloomingdale’s house label Aqua. Boohoo, Gap, and Smash + Tess were among the labels to launch collections tied to the Barbie movie in 2023. A year before that, men’s clothing brand Knickerbocker debuted collections themed after two Gotham media institutions, New York magazine and The New York Times.
Of course, fashion labels are so collab happy these days that nearly any brand is a potential suitor. (Forever 21 really did put out a Cheetos collection in 2019.) But while media partnerships are a rarer species than other sorts of fashion collaborations, they make sense for the same reasons.
“Whenever a brand can leverage an existing affinity or behavior instead of starting from scratch, it can provide a quick and significant sales boost by tapping into consumers’ emotional connection to the entertainment property and the partner brand,” said marketing strategist Ian Baer, founder and chief executive at agency Sooth.
