The queue to get into H&M’s flagship outlet at Orchard Building for first dibs of the Balmain x H&M collection started on Monday (Nov 2), three days before the actual launch on Thursday.
There were nine people at the outlet just before midnight on Tuesday, many of whom were students holding their group’s place in the queue. First in line was 21-year-old Neo Jin Han, whose friend had started the queue at about 6.30pm on Monday evening.
“(My friend) will take over at 8am tomorrow. After that we will wait out the night together until the launch,” said Mr Neo. He said that he was queueing as the collection was a way they could own something from the French label without having to part with large amounts of money.
Another in line on Tuesday night was 25-year-old student Pei Wen, who was spending her time working on a school assignment.
She told Channel NewsAsia she was aiming for an embellished dress and T-shirts, despite being let down by some of the T-shirt designs.
“(The T-shirt collection) is quite disappointing,” she said. “The shirts have ‘Balmain Asia’ on them and Balmain is a French company. I think they were just trying to make it unique to this region.”
Mr Neo begged to differ: “The T-shirts are what everybody wants.”
The 109-piece collection, with tops starting from S$59.90 and dresses ranging from S$119 to S$899 a piece, will go on sale from 8am on Thursday. They will be available at the Swedish brand’s Singapore flagship store at Orchard Building, and its ION Orchard outlet.
Despite it being understood that no queueing is allowed inside ION Orchard beyond the mall’s retail hours, a spokesperson for H&M said a queue has begun to form for the collection there as well.
“During all our designer collaboration launches, we always have a systematic queue system with trained security guards and experienced store staff on standby to ensure the safety of all our customers,” said the spokesperson. “Queue poles will be set up once the first customer starts queueing.”
The spokesperson added: “We worked closely with the management team of ION Orchard to ensure that the queue will be managed well and should customers choose to queue overnight, the same arrangements will be made.”
According to the H&M app, purchases are limited to a maximum of one piece of each item per person to allow everyone to shop the new collection. It also stated that every group of 30 customers will be given a different coloured bracelet to determine when they will be allowed into the store. Each group only gets 10 minutes in the “shop-in-shop” area where the collection is displayed.
“The allocated 10 minutes is implemented so that we can manage the crowd better, maintain fairness and shorten queue duration,” said the spokesperson. “The 10-minute window doesn’t include trying on of clothes and shoes as customers can do that at their own time when they exit the area.”
According to H&M, more than 600 customers were in the line when the Alexander Wang x H&M collection opened last year.