Hands up who doesn’t love H&M? Anyone? Thought not. The huge chain store is one of the few shops where you can find a skirt for under £3 and now feel hideously cheap and tacky; it has the Primark price tag without the ick-factor- rummaging through rail upon rail to find your size and undoubtedly getting your ankles run over by a buggy. H&M manages to find the (difficult) balance of being affordable without being cheap, on-trend but not horrendously OTT and while their stores are usually large and choc-full of goodies, you don’t find yourself tripping over last seasons cardigans to get to that £30 dress you’ve seen everywhere. It’s a one-stop shop for basics that manage to avoid being too, well, basic. But there is one thing it has been lacking for the past couple of years; an online store. As aforementioned, H&M stores are often packed, not just with people, but with clothes, and this can often be a problem when you spied something gorgeous in a magazine and have just dashed in to grab it. Like most people, I am a huge online shopper, particularly when I want or have seen something specific and know exactly where to get it. I just don’t have time to hunt through rails and rails for something that I want. Especially as hunting through rails of beautiful clothes usually results in an impulse buy. Or two. Online shopping is much simpler and easier when you don’t have time to stop. But H&M is one of the few shops that has not previously had an online UK store. In this day and age of one-click shopping I bet I wasn’t the only one who was sure I was just clicking the wrong button on the website and hoped to one day find a secret passage into the elusive online purchasing section. As Alas, this was not the case, but not for much longer! H&M announced back in October last year that they would be launching a website, and a date has finally been announced for launch-16^th September 2010.

So what can we expect from the H&M website? The usual fare, I hope. Bandage skirts for £2.99, which may not be the quality of more expensive brands, but who cares if you sometimes flash more than you care to show when you can buy it in 5 colours? I’m hoping for their usual array of simplicity and choice (I often buy the same thing in several colours from their stores), coupled with their beautifully on-trend pieces and accessories. All for an affordable price. Their autumn look book features lots of grungy-looking floral pieces, loose floaty silhouettes and lots of layering, and seems to be perfectly on-trend for autumn winter, with cool camels and neutral greys and navys creeping onto the catwalks. The H&M website will also launch a homeware section, which has proven to be very successful in its native Sweden; the homeware section will focus on ease and simplicity and will take the form of an online catalogue where shoppers can search by room for a simple update. The homeware section will follow its clothes in its focus on inexpensive wardrobe updates.

Personally, I cannot wait to see H&M online. What do you think?

photo credit: http://www.fabsugar.co.uk/H-M-Goes-Online-UK-Shopping-From-September-2010-9050171