H&M Grand Opening!

Well, despite my preparing for Thanksgiving travel the next morning, I couldn't resist the trip to the H&M Grand Opening on Saturday morning. I knew there would be a line to get in, but I was completely overwhelmed by the reality of it. I arrived at 9:00 am, an hour before the doors opened, to find the line snaking down Powell, around the corner and all the way down Ellis, around the corner again and 3/4's of the way up Stockton, practically to O'Farrell. I was feeling a bit dishearten of ever getting in, but I figured that if I gave up my precious Saturday morning sleep-in I had to make it worthwhile.

I got to chatting with my neighbors in line, an Old Navy employee and her boyfriend (who was there quite willingly, by the way) and a couple of Macy's personal shoppers! It seems that the retail world was just as excited as the rest of us to see the new H&M store. We were pretty sure that we wouldn't get the 20% discount or the t-shirt promised to the first 200 hundred people in. My guess is that we were around number 750 in line, which numbered up to 1000, or so I read.

Excited H&M employees came by with candy and swag (which was all gone by the time they got to our end of the line) to try to keep our spirits up. I witnessed a wrestling match over a freebie thrown to the crowd, which turned out to be a set of H&M playing cards. Definitely not worth the broken finger nail the losing wrestler received for her trouble.

Finally at 10:00 the line started moving. Fortunately the wait wasn't too long. I got in a mere 30 minutes after the opening. I headed upstairs pretty quickly to the Stella McCartney section and found the cut-throat crowds that I feared. There wasn't too much left to grab up, but I did manage a silk camisole by Stella. I didn't see much else in my size so I toured through the rest of the store.

I picked up several adorable, and wonderfully affordable pieces, including a pair of tweed pants, a mohair cardigan, and nubby tweed skirt, as well as a few lovely t-shirts. As I was weaving through the girls trying on their booty in the middle of the floor, I spied one of the silk Stella blouses that was only available in size 12 upstairs. My lucky stars, it was my size!!! I really lucked out that someone decided to abandon it among the sweat pants.

Then on to the challenge of the check out line. By that time I was hot, tired and dehydrated... silly me forgot to bring water :-( But I had to press on, so I got to chatting with the girl ahead of me in line. She had been #28 in line to get in the store, arriving at 3:30 am all the way from San Diego! What dedication to shopping, I was truly impressed. After a few delays (the credit card connection went down for a little while) I finally paid for my pile-o-clothes. I won't divulge the total, but I will say that I got everything for an average of $20 per piece :-)

Finally at home I got to try everything on (believe me, I wasn't going to even look at the dressing rooms or try on in the aisles). Yay... everything fits. I think I will return one item because I realize I have something very similar to it already. Otherwise I'm keeping it all. Half of my new purchases ended up in the suitcase for my trip to LA (still H&M-less).

So, a couple of hints about H&M. The sizing is European, so buy everything a size larger than you normally do. I think the sizes are probably more true than many American stores who trick you into buying it just because you are so excited to fit into a small size ;-) The other is buy it when you see it. From all I've heard, and my experience in New York, they produce small lots of everything and are constantly restocking with new stuff. In New York I bought everything too small (before I figured out the sizing) and when I went back the next day to exchange for the next size up the items I bought were all gone.

As for the insanity of the H&M grand opening, I'd say it was worth it. I love my purchases, and am glad to be able to say I was there the first day.