H&M, the second-largest global clothing retailer, made its Boulder debut Thursday at the Twenty Ninth Street mall.
Minutes before noon, about 200 people lined the west end of the mall waiting for the grand opening of the inexpensive and trendy fashion store. H&M’s dancing staff and a live DJ greeted shoppers when the doors opened to the public for the first time.
A shopper browses for his size at the grand opening of H&M’s Twenty Ninth Street mall location on Thursday. (Nate Bruzdzinski/CU Independent)
Junior Japanese major Ashley Song waited with with her friends Tina Ly and Lauren Kennedy. They had arrived at 8:30 a.m. and were among the first 100 people in line. They received a goody bag and a scratch ticket that gave them up to $300 off of their final purchases.
“I’m excited that H&M is a lot closer now,” Song said. “There will definitely be more broke college students now than there already are.”
H&M’s Boulder store is Colorado’s sixth location and only about 20 minutes away from the one in the Flatiron’s Crossing Mall in Broomfield. The Boulder location has departments for children, men and women.
Kate Honea, marketing manager at Twenty Ninth Street, said the new addition of H&M “is a great match for the mall.”
“Retail is about how a store connects with the local trade area, how it matches their overall business goals and needs,” Honea said. “H&M is on the cutting edge of fashion and affordability and with it comes an even greater variety and broader retail mix for the Boulder shopper.”
Freshman journalism major Steve Marcantonio didn’t attend the grand opening but is interested in seeing the trends the store will bring to campus.
“H&M is pretty much priced for college kids. I’d save lot of money if I shopped there more often,” Marcantonio said. “I’m also interested to see how much more fashionable my classmates are with such accessible style so close by.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Carissa Chen at carissa.chen@colorado.edu, twitter/chen_carissa.
