H&M: A Hennes Shop in Västerås, Lagerfeld Sellouts and Rana Plaza

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Erling Persson opened Hennes, Swedish for "hers," in Västerås in 1947, selling only women's clothing for over 20 years. In 1968 he bought the Stockholm hunting apparel retailer Mauritz Widforss, added menswear and renamed the company Hennes & Mauritz. H&M reached London in 1976, sold online in 1998 and opened on Fifth Avenue in 2000, and it now runs over 4,000 stores as the world's second largest clothing retailer behind Inditex. It produces about three billion garments a year and once held $4 billion in surplus inventory. A November 2004 collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld sold out in about an hour in major cities and began annual designer drops with Stella McCartney, Viktor & Rolf, Versace and Madonna.

The episode then turns to supply chain costs. The April 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh killed over 1,100 people, and in 2011 nearly 300 workers fainted in a week at a Cambodian supplier where the minimum wage was $66 a month. A 2013 pledge to pay a living wage by 2018 fell short, according to later worker interviews. A 2020 statement on Xinjiang cotton triggered a Chinese boycott that cut sales there by up to 40%, and a 2018 "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle" hoodie led to protests and store closures in South Africa. Its sustainability pledges drew a formal greenwashing warning from Norway's consumer authority.

• Wes Anderson directed H&M's 2016 holiday film starring Adrien Brody.
• Sister brands include COS, Arket, Monki and & Other Stories.
• Chinese app stores, e-commerce sites and even ride-hailing apps blocked H&M in 2021; sales resumed in August 2022.
• A 2024 Australian school uniform ad was pulled after criticism that it sexualized children.
• H&M pledged to drop mulesed wool and virgin down and to use 100% recycled or sustainably sourced materials by 2030.