Good morning dear readers! Happy Saturday first of all. I hope you have some fun things planned for today. I will be shopping this afternoon with my sister, shopping furniture and second-hand treasures. But first: Kind Style Saturday! And today I will highlight my favorite shopping destination: &other Stories. I simply looooove this store.

What’s the brand exactly:

I would like to give you a little introduction: &other Stories is part of the H&M group, together with COS, Arket, Monki, Weekday, AFound, Cheap Monday and of course H&M (including H&M home). &other Stories has started in 2013 and is all about inspiring fashion stories, created from their ateliers in Paris, Stockholm and Los Angeles. They offer apparel, lingerie, accessories, jewelry, shoes, make-up, beauty and stationary products. Their stores, 70 in total, are situated in (mostly) capital cities in the world. Next to their physical stores they have a good offer online. Their qualities are high while their prices are very affordable. Their iconic pieces have a runway-feeling, are spot-on trendy and are mostly sold-out quick.

Their shoe collection is so beautiful
Stationary products as a fashion statement
Delicate lingerie and bodies
&other Stories in Amsterdam. Image from lizt.nl

What the H&M Group does with kindness:

As a total organization, the owners of the H&M Group started the H&M Foundation. It is started by Karl-Johan Persson, the grandson of the founder of H&M (Erling Persson in 1947), in 2013. The foundation seeks to make a change in different areas. The foundation is a privately funded foundation by the family Persson. Since 2013, the family has donated 1.5 billion Swedish krona ($200 million/€163 million) to the H&M Foundation. The H&M Foundation consists of a small team of nine people, situated at the H&M head quarter in Stockholm, Sweden.

For &other Stories, the H&M Foundation operates as an umbrella organization in total. 

The focus of the H&M foundation is education, water, equality and the planet.  Next to these working areas, H&M foundation provides emergency relief where it is needed (such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, storms, epidemics or infestations). They strive for a positive change on a global, national and local level. In order to achieve this positive change, the H&M Foundation cooperates with a tremendous amount of charity organizations such as: Unisef, The Red Cross, Water Aid, Save the Children, Plan International, Warchild and Missing Children Europe.They specifically focus on Education with UNICEF, Water with WaterAid and Equality with CARE (Women’s economic empowerment). In 2018, 46 countries and 2.3 million people were reached by the H&M Founda­tion’s initiatives within our four focus areas. In total, 6 million people have been reached since 2013.

  • 881.000 children got good quality education in the world’s poorest countries

  • 4.200.000 people got access to clean water and sanitation

  • 863.000 women got empowered to start their own companies in 20 countries

  • 6.600 initiatives have been made possible to strive for a circular, waste-free fashion industry around the world

  • H&m Foundation gave emergency relief in the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Indonesia. 

Recycling program

H&M Group is stepping up the game of recycling by inventing new ways to recycle textile blends. This increases the amount of recyclable products and therefore saves a wasted piece of clothing (made out of a textile blend). Every H&M concept offers the possibility for its customer to hand-in their old fashion pieces in order to recycle. Next to recycling opportunities for clothing, &other Stories offers the possibility to recycle their beauty packages. Bringing back any empty package of their products, will give you a discount on your next purchase. This way, the H&M group assures the recycle their packages in the right circumstances. As a customer, its a true win-win situation.

Their beauty products in pretty & recyclable packaging

Review & Opinion

As a fashion-lover, I enjoy the H&M group brand and there collection. Therefore I personally really feel good about the fact H&M changed it’s mindset in 2013 and started caring about their influence in the world. They make an effort in multiple areas and cooperate with professional organizations in order to achieve the best results possible. The fact H&M Foundation is privately funded by the family Persson shows me a beautiful sense of humanity. They make changes and are building up their effort year by year. In their annual reports you will see each year they give more money to the H&M Foundation. This may be in line with the growth of turnover of the total H&M Group. To give you an idea: the turnover of the H&M Group in 2018 was 244,26 billion Swedish Krona ( 23,8 million euro). The turnover isn’t the same as net profit, which means a lot of the turnover consists of costs such as development costs, production costs, transportation costs, store-costs and employee loans worldwide. As the net profit is unknown, all I can say is that the average spent on H&M foundation each year is 27.2 million which is 0,0011% of their turnover. This is a donation, gifted by the family. I am in no position to judge whether this is appropriate for the Persson family or the H&M Group itself. I personally like their options to recycle (I do recycle their beauty packages all the time) and the fact they changed the development of recycling by discovering the option of recycling textile blends. This is such a great improvement for the future and I am sure this will affect the total fashion industry in the near future. Curious what their future has in store.

Would you like to stay updated on the H&M Foundation? Their website is truly A-MA-ZING and you may like to follow their Instagram: @hmfoundation

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A little shop-log from &other Stories

My favorite spring knit of the collection
Summer, are you there yet? In need of a cabriolet with this pretty dress
This dresses (L) So beautiful!
This whole Spring section makes me so happy!
This pastel suit is just perfect for a chique brunch on Sunday
This Tee, with little a ribbon, is just a perfect fitted staple for every woman
&other Stories: clothes that make you happy