In March, when Zara announced a two-year creative partnership with John Galliano, it elicited quite the stir. The first collectsion, which lands in stores in September, will offer those of us who spent their adolescence admiring his archival runway images on Tumblr a chance to finally get in on the action. Willy Chavarria’s own Zara hookup and Christopher John Rogers’s collaboration with Old Navy may be smaller in scale but they still produce the giddy feeling of finding a high-low deal.
This morning, Stella McCartney revealed the lookbook for her forthcoming capsule collectsion with H&M, 21 years after her original partnership with the Swedish retailer. In 2005, the collab was such a success British Vogue deemed the event a “shopping riot.” One blue silk jumpsuit even ended up in the V&A Museum as an example of the designer’s signature style. That a mass market brand collab could give glitterati and laymen alike a case of the shoppies can be seen as early proof of fashion’s oncoming democratization, something that is only solidified by the British designer’s return to H&M in 2026.
At the time of its original release, McCartney’s H&M deal was the company’s second-ever design collaboration—the first being Karl Lagerfeld in 2004. For Lagerfeld, the slightly controversial H&M partnership transformed him from fashion’s king of lofty eccentricities to a designer with his own mainstream celebrity fame, so much so that he went on to star in ads for Volkswagen and direct a campaign for Diet Coke.
While these sorts of partnerships have become a mainstay of the last two decades, such mixing was not always seen in a positive light. When Halston signed a multi-year deal with J.C. Penney, it more or less killed his high fashion career. The ink was barely dry when Bergdorf Goodman stopped carrying his clothes. In 1983, The New York Times reported that while a new batch of customers embraced the sudden accessibility of a $24 Halston creation, Bergdorf’s then-president Ira Neimark, remarked, “We decided that designers, as well as retailers, have to decide who their customers are and proceed in that direction. Halston made his decision and we have made ours.” (It’s worth noting that in the same piece, Calvin Klein defended Halston’s right to appeal to multiple markets.)
McCartney told my colleague Liam Hess that in 2004, her collaboration still felt like a “risk;” however, the “cheap-chic” tides had already begun to turn. In 1999 Target struck gold partnering with architect Michael Graves, which then kicked off 20 years of subsequent designer collaborations. Among them, a multi-year deal with Isaac Mizrahi, Stephen Sprouse (fresh off of his collaboration with Louis Vuitton), Proenza Schouler, Alexander McQueen, Anna Sui, and Missoni. The popularity of the Missoni offering caused the retailer’s website to crash for the majority of launch day, prompting tweets from Jessica Alba and Jessica Simpson who lamented that they were missing out. Celebrities, they’re just like us.
Uniqlo has since partnered with designers and brands like Jil Sander, Marni, and JW Anderson with great success. Likewise, H&M has continued to sign on new designers, offering budget-friendly options for the hopeful masses every year. Collaborations have included Viktor & Rolf in 2006, Comme des Garçons in 2008, Maison Margiela in 2012, Balmain in 2015, Simone Rocha in 2021, and Glenn Martens in 2025, to name a few. I remember spotting a preview of Rocha’s collaboration at Dover Street Market New York just days before its launch and was quickly informed by the tailing sales associate that I’d have to wait until the official drop to shop it. When I went to the website the day of, almost every item—including the white jacquard dress I had been eyeing—had instantly sold out, and I still see the bow-laden neoprene bag from that collab on New York streets today.
For Maison Margiela’s own H&M collab, the elusive French house repurposed quite a few of its “greatest hits,” as Lynn Yaeger wrote at the time in Vogue. “For those who were too young or too broke to wear these things the first time around, the clothes are a wonderful autumn surprise,” she said. The lack of dilution between what came down the brand’s runways and what H&M had hanging on its rails was an added part of the already huge appeal. In 2013, Yaeger also recounted, “I once wore a Comme des Garçons for H&M coat to the Paris Comme shop, and the sales staff refused to believe it wasn’t part of the store’s regular line.”
Brandon Veloria, co-founder of the lower Manhattan vintage hotspot James Veloria, remembers the same. “As a rule, I’ve never really purchased fast fashion in stores but when the H&M Margiela collectsion came out I remember running in to purchase the belt buckle jacket which was a reproduction of a piece from fall 2006 I could never have afforded,” they say. The belted leather jacket from the collaboration is still a fashion “grail.” So much so that I bet there’s fans who were too young or too broke or lived too far away from an H&M (like me), that wish there could be a third time around.
Veloria has never had a client request a piece from a prior collaboration but they often spot items from the Margiela and Comme des Garçons H&M collectsions still circulating on the secondhand market. These pieces generally sell for the same or more than their original affordable retail prices. Their longevity has not led to a decrease in value. Likewise, the desire for a good deal—from customers and celebrities alike—does not wane.
We’re long past the point when the high-low combo was radical, even scandalous; cross-market collaborations are more or less standard practice now, but it does feel like John Galliano’s Zara project ups the ante, and the redux of Stella McCartney’s H&M has us hoping there will be some other re-reeditions too.
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