Fletcher Nursing given top rating
February 9, 2017
Ora McGuire
February 9, 2017
“Five, four, three, two…one!”
With that countdown, H&M was open in Houma’s Southland Mall. Energetic staffers lined the aisles, cheerily welcoming hundreds of shoppers filing in.
The clothing retailer, known for its “fast fashion” strategy of bringing the most recent gear to stores to capitalize on the latest trends, had its grand opening yesterday. The store’s opening marks H&M’s fourth store in Louisiana and first venture into the Bayou Region.
While dozens of workers were on hand at the grand opening to assist customers, the store is expected to typically have less workers on hand when the store starts operating normally. Patrick Shaner, spokesman for H&M, said the store would have approximately 20 full-time staff, with most of the hires being local. Aside from providing local retail jobs, H&M is bringing in affordable fashion for everybody, according to Shaner.
“You can have like business clothes, more like street style clothes, clothes for kids, accessories. We have all of that. That’s what our business model is: affordable fashion in a sustainable way,” Shaner said.
Shaner said the sustainable part of H&M’s philosophy is selling lines that have some version of recyclable material. The company also has a policy where people can bring in old clothes, purchased from H&M or anywhere else. The customer receives a 15 percent discount on their purchases that day, and H&M reuses, recycles or repurposes clothes with another company.
Jordan Dubois was focusing more on the affordable aspect of H&M’s philosophy as he went through the men’s section with friends. He works at another store in the mall, so he decided to come to the grand opening on his day off. Dubois, who had a pair of chinos and some distressed, black jeans, said this was his first time at an H&M.
“It’s pretty cool, I mean, I found some clothes here that are pretty decently priced compared to Pac Sun, which would have been like $100 for these two things,” Dubois said.
Darren Tillman was in line with a bag full of items to checkout. He said he showed up because his friend, Joyce Simmons, is working at the store and told him to come to the opening. He said he got to the mall around 9 a.m. to find a few people waiting for the opening, and the line really started growing around 10:30 a.m. He said his early impressions of the store’s cleanliness, customer service and clothing selection make it stick out in the area.
“There’s nowhere else like this in Houma. It’s needed. I think it’s going to attract more attention to the mall now,” Tillman said.
