Teamwork is the key to fashionable ideas

Collaborating with top designers from the lavish Roberto Cavalli to the avant-garde Viktor and Rolf, Swedish retailers H&M have redefined the distinction between high street and designer fashion. They’ve made affordable what was once exclusive – and it’s all thanks to Margareta van den Bosch.

“We are celebrating our 10th anniversary of designer collaborations this year,” says van den Bosch, Creative Advisor, H&M (Sweden). “We’ve worked with Stella McCartney, Karl Lagerfeld, Jimmy Choo, and more. H&M have a huge variety of shoppers, and collaborating with all of these different designers helps us appeal to that diverse range of styles.”

H&M’s collaborations challenge renowned designers to reinterpret their fashion prowess into clothing that’s available – both stylistically and economically – to the masses. “We want someone unique each year,” explains van den Bosch. “Most recently, we chose to work with Alexander Wang because H&M had never done a collaborative collection with a sportswear designer.”

van den Bosch studied fashion at Beckman’s School of Design in Stockholm, before working for fashion houses in Italy and Sweden and eventually coming back to Beckman’s as an instructor. After joining H&M in 1986, van den Bosch acted as the brand’s first head of design.

Now H&M’s creative advisor at the helm of cutprice designer collaborations, it’s no surprise van den Bosch thinks teamwork is key in fashion design education. “At H&M everyone works in a team. Students need discussions and group projects in order to learn design thinking because when it comes to designing clothes or using design to solve problems, it’s essential to work in a team,” she says.

Collaboration in the fashion design industry can occur at both the micro and macro levels, and van den Bosch stresses that teamwork is just as important to print artists and pattern makers as it is to managing producers. Van den Bosch says that new technology is also forcing designers to work together in new ways – and that’s something design education must address.