Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garcons, has been tapped to design an autumn collection for Swedish clothes retailer Hennes & Mauritz, the group said Thursday. H&M said Kawakubo was to design a collection for women and men, and some pieces for children. The collection was to include accessories and a unisex fragrance. In a statement the designer said the collaboration offered a chance for Kawakubo to explore "the balance between creation and business." H&M creative advisor Margareta van den Bosch said "Kawakubo has been at the top of our wish list for a long time and we are thrilled that she has chosen to collaborate with us." Van den Bosch noted that the collection was due to be launched in Japan "at the same time as the launch of our new store there." The clothes retailer was scheduled to open its second store in Tokyo at the beginning of November, and the collection was to be launched in the other H&M markets a few days later.

H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB, the world's No. 3 clothing retailer, aims to aggressively open stores in Japan, including sites in regional shopping centres, the Nikkei reported citing chief executive officer Rolf Eriksen. The business daily quoted Eriksen as saying in an interview that mergers and acquisitions are one way to expand operations in Japan. H&M will debut its first Japanese store in Tokyo's Ginza district on September 13 and open stores in Harajuku in November and Shibuya in fall 2009, the business daily said. It plans to set prices for women's cardigans at 2,490 yen and jeans at 3,290 yen, similar to No. 1 domestic clothing retailer Uniqlo Co, which is under the umbrella of Fast Retailing Co. The leader in this field, Gap Inc of the U.S., boasts some 130 stores in Japan, while second-ranked Industria de Deseno Textil SA of Spain has a network of more than 30 Zara sites, the report said.

H&M, the global fashion brand based in Sweden, debuted in Japan on Saturday with the inauguration of a store in Ginza, Tokyo. Retailing a vast range of fashionable apparel for women, men and children at reasonable prices, the group has been steadily expanding its global reach. Currently, H&M has about 1,600 stores in 30 countries. In this 15th installment in a series on the world's leading brands, Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer Reiko Bando interviews Rolf Eriksen, chief executive officer of Hennes & Mauritz AB, in Stockholm. A native of Denmark, Eriksen, 63, used to be marketing manager at Danish department store ANVA, before joining H&M in 1986. After serving as country manager for Denmark and Sweden, he assumed his current post in 2000.

The Yomiuri Shimbun: H&M is a newcomer to Japan. What is the business concept you want to convey to Japanese consumers?

Rolf Eriksen: We want to let our customers experience the shock of the new. This will happen when customers visit our stores and compare our clothes with those of our competitors. Our principle is to provide fashion and high quality at the best possible price. H&M stores offer new items in their stores every day, which is something Japanese consumers have never experienced before. It's our culture as a company to do things that surprise customers. It's more difficult to maintain that strategy worldwide. We know our customers like these surprises, so we do it--we believe we can continue to do it. It's important to have an established profile and to stay in front of the pack. To that end, we have more than 100 designers who create new items every day.

What is your impression of Japan?

Very good. I have traveled all over the world for the past 40 years, visiting big cities such as Paris and New York many times. Four years ago, I visited Tokyo for the first time, and I got the same feeling I had during my first visit to Paris--people in the street are very fashionable.

What is your analysis of the Japanese market and consumers?

I think it's a very interesting market--people here have a very strong fashion identity. It's also a market with a huge population, so we see a lot of opportunities in Japan for our concepts. I already can imagine Japanese consumers, especially young people, wearing H&M. Tokyo is one of the world's key metropolises when it comes to fashion. First, we have to make an all-out effort to ensure H&M is accepted in Japan. So, in the beginning, we'll take things slowly. We hope we'll succeed in Japan with our first three stores [including stores in Harajuku and Shibuya that are set to open in November and late 2009, respectively] and will be able to continue to grow in the future.

What prompted H&M's collaboration with leading Japanese fashion brand Comme des Garcons?

It forms part of our brand-building activities all over the world--we create sensational items with famous designers to let people know about H&M. Rei Kawakubo [founder of Comme des Garcons] is a world-famous artist. We're always looking for opportunities to collaborate with designers all over the world, and we thought it could be nice for us to enter Japan together with a Japanese designer. Kawakubo creates very exciting collections, so we thought our collaboration with her would be very exciting in Europe and the United States, too. In fact, it was a big surprise for the market when we chose Rei Kawakubo. We like to surprise the market now and then with new, fantastic collections.

The mass sale of merchandise has been criticized for leading to mass consumption.

If you look at our customers, they're buying high-quality fashion at the best prices, not the lowest prices. It's appropriate and important that everyone can afford to buy our clothes. We have about 70,000 direct employees, but if we take into account those who are involved in design, production, shipping and retailing, we rely on nearly 1 million people worldwide. In a sense, our products are for everyone, not for a limited number of people. In other words, I think our product lineup is democratic. As for environmental protection, we have set ourselves high goals in terms of changing the ways we produce and transport garments. That's the challenge for all industries in the future in the areas of energy and carbon dioxide. It's not a short-term challenge but a long-term one.

What we're doing is aimed at reducing our effect, as a big company, on the climate, which is the biggest challenge. We can't do it ourselves--we have to do it together. We have to assume our share of the responsibility. As an example of our ecological efforts, we used 30 tons of organic cotton in 2006. We increased the volume to 1,300 tons in 2007. This year to date, we already have exceeded our own annual target of 2,000 tons. That is one way you can improve the environment. Finding new environmental friendly materials is important.