How can a brand be so cheap, but have so many styles?
Browsing through my closet I was wondering how a brand like H&M could be so cheap and still have so many different styles. I found three complete different styles, not only by shape but also by fabric and price. The styles had one thing in common; they were all made of knitted fabrics.
Fabric 1:
This fabric is just a plain knit. What H&M did was not using the right side of the plain knitted fabric, but the wrong side. This gives a total different look to the fabric and also to the style. It is a very cheap way to change the look of a style.
Fabric 2:
This fabric is also just a plain knitted fabric. What H&M did was turning the fabric 90°. Normally you would find VV on front of the knitted fabric, but in this case you could find << on the front. The turning of the fabric does not only have the result that the style looks different, but the stretch is also different.
Fabric 3:
The last fabric is also a plain knitted fabric. When adding patterns to a fabric there are different options to choose from. It is either possible to print a pattern to a fabric or knitting in the pattern to a fabric. The first one is the cheapest, but there is a possibility that the print fades away. In this case H&M used silk-screen printing technique to add the pattern.
I was amazed by these slight changes in the fabrics and the big input it has on the style and end product. It inspirers me that H&M is this smart in using and producing fabrics. Sometimes the solution can be a lot easier than the problem.
