H&M Takes A Punt With First-Ever Airport Store For Fashion Brand & Other Stories

Sweden’s global fast fashion retailer H&M (Hennes & Mauritz) is piloting its first-ever airport store for the women’s fashion brand & Other Stories at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport, a key hub in the Scandinavian market, processing almost 22 million passengers last year.

By total worldwide store count, & Other Stories—launched in 2013—is one of H&M’s bigger retail fascias. While H&M’s more than 3,800 stores dwarf it, the brand ranked third (among eight) with 71 units in 25 markets at the end of August, behind COS, H&M’s upscale fashion offering with 236 stores.

From the first quarter of 2025, Arlanda’s passengers passing through Terminal 5 will be able to shop the fashion collection of & Other Stories in a space that the airport operator, Swedavia, has developed into a retail marketplace in the past year.

The & Other Stories airport unit will include a sophisticated range of clothing and shoes, accessories, jewelry, undergarments, swimwear, and beauty items, designed in Paris and Stockholm. According to state-owned Swedavia, the range has been adapted specifically for the airport to meet the specific needs of passengers.

The T5 marketplace is Arlanda’s largest-ever commercial investment and is still growing. Since opening in the fall of 2023, more than a dozen restaurants and cafés have appeared alongside shops such as Lakritsroten, Sweshop, World of Toys, and Pocket Shop. & Other Stories will join them in a standalone space occupying almost 1,300 square feet and will be operated via a six-year contract by travel retailer Avolta. The contract runs until 2031.

Scandi focus

Swedavia’s aim for the marketplace is “to support and promote Swedish and Scandinavian brands” according to the company’s director of marketing and sales Charlotte Ljunggren. The store opening also builds on Avolta’s strong retail and F&B partnership with the airport operator. It will be the travel retailer’s ninth store at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. In addition, Avolta operates 12 food and beverage units there, including Samla City Bar and Bread/Break which opened earlier this year.

Margareta Le Calvé, Avolta’s general manager for the Nordics said that spotlighting local heroes was one of her aims and that & Other Stories was a good fit for that strategy. The decision from H&M to take the retail brand into the airport is probably more opportunistic.

Lina Söderqvist, managing director of & Other Stories, said in a statement: “The new Arlanda marketplace provides a valuable opportunity for & Other Stories to connect with a global audience, offering travelers a closer look at our brand in a dynamic setting.”

The H&M brand made a previous foray into the Scandinavian airport channel when it briefly opened a large duplex store at Copenhagen Airport about a decade ago. However, H&M Group has not prioritized airports since then. But things can change.

Just last week, Daniel Ervér, H&M Group’s CEO dropped some hints about the way forward for the company in a period of flat sales. He said: “2024 is a year in which we’re laying the foundation for future growth. We’re increasing the pace of improvements in our customer offering and deprioritizing things that don’t strengthen our brands or contribute to our sales and profitability.”

The jaunt into Arlanda could therefore signal a new push into the travel space if Ervér now thinks this retail channel could give some of his brand portfolio a boost.