WWD is reporting today that Jimmy Choo’s Tamara Mellon is developing a holiday collection of shoes and bags and accessories for women and men, and even womens’ clothing, for H & M! It’s a holiday oriented collection and will be in H & M on November 14th.
Something to live for!!!!!!!!!!!! We need cheap Choos!!!!!!!!
Carrie Bradshaw would be dancing on her computer if she were still on the air!

Looks like those fashionable denizens of Brentwood, Bel Air, Beverly Glen, Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades are getting their prayers answered: H & M is opening at the Westside Pavillion on Pico near Westwood this Thursday, June 11, promptly at noon. This being H & M, there will be a huge line at the door, and the first one hundred customers will get an H & M t-shirt, and a shopping card valued from $10 to $100. At H & M, that could be two or three dresses! We have a feeling those charity lunches are going to get a lot less – expensive – for Westside savvy shoppers – and their teenagers. They no longer have to cross Doheny to get great looks!

I had an amazing fashion experience this morning, people. I got to the H & M at the Beverly Center at 9:45 am, just before the doors were to open for the second shipment of the Matthew Williamson Collection for H & M – this being Matthew’s FIRST EVER collection for men, with a second group of MW pieces for women (chiffon caftans, printed ruffled gowns, printed tops, chiffon dresses with MW style embroidery) (the first group had a limited release with H & M in April) – and accessories: printed bags, sunglasses, etc. Within about 8 minutes of the doors opening, every single women’s piece was snapped up. I mean, EVERY – even the highest priced ones, the $200 chiffon printed caftan and $200 embroidered dress. Women of all ages were just grabbing pieces – of ALL and ANY sizes – and just piling them up, not even trying them on! H & M West Coast spokeswoman Pansy Tolou told us that people were lined up at 5 am outside the mall, and that some even slept outside the Beverly Center Quizno’s. “What recession?” Tolou laughed, as she watched women stockpiling dresses and tops.

This is Sweden-based H & M’s seventh designer collaboration – they’ve attempted one almost every year since they started with Karl Lagerfeld in 2003. They followed with Viktor & Rolf, Stella McCartney, Commes des Garcons, Madonna and Robert Cavalli – and they’ve all been wildly successful with customers, and at the cash register. “Our executives sit down and decide which designer our customer would be the most excited about,” explained Tolou. “Matthew was very excited, and agreed right away. He even posed as a model for his own H & M’s men’s line, with Daria Werbowy. It’s a huge success, and a way to expose customers to their own brands.” We wish more pieces were coming to H & M from Matthew – but the company produces a full line at once, and they don’t go back to it. We’re sorry for those who weren’t there today – I got a beautiful blouse, a dress, and two print MW tops – for about 200 bucks! This is the first SPRING SUMMER collection that H & M has produced with a big designer and they sure picked the right guy. – Merle Ginsberg

You already know that Matthew Williamson did a great limited edition collection for H & M, that went into limited H & M stores on April 23. Some celebs have already been photographed wearing these pieces. This Thursday, May 14, the FULL Matthew Williamson collection – mens pieces, too – hits H & M’s everywhere – including Beverly Center. These are great pieces for summer – color, prints, bathing suit cover ups, short dresses. But if you don’t make it by the weekend, the whole nine yards COULD be sold out. We suggest you schedule an H & M pitstop on Thursday or Friday – Beverly Center or Sunset.

Madonna’s sport-inspired clothing line for H & M a few years back was a big hit – and sold incredibly well. So it’s surprising the Material Girl (get it? – she’s good at fabric? okay, bad pun) hasn’t done more in terms of fashion design – it’s obviously in her blood. But it’s not like she doesn’t have a lot going on. Now it looks like she’s going to do line for L.A. based designer Christian Audigier’s Ed Hardy line. She’s been spotted around London and NY wearing Ed Hardy tattoo t shirts, and apparently, she’ll get 6 figures for a special Madonna-named collection of tatoo t shirts and crystal encrusted bodices. This was first reported by London’s Daily Mirror – but it’s big news for Audigier, who has often done shows in Los Angeles, has a store on Melrose, and who also dresses Heidi Klum and his many friends in the music business. His clothes are also super popular with the biker crowd, and club kids. And what inspired Madonna to create the new line? Audigier asked her. You never know till you ask.

Forget not shopping during the recession. That could last two years. These days, if you wait long enough – and that’s not long – your favorite designers will be doing limited edition lines for H & M or Target. Coming March 4th is the McQueen McQ collection for Target – but it will only be online and in 250 Targets around the country, and we have a feeling it’s going to sell out VERY VERY fast. It ostensibly goes on sale in March, but we suggest you start going on Target.com by mid Feb. In fact, anyone going to NY fashion week: the Target on West 34th St. (to be turned into “the Target McQ market,” with a feeling of Camden Market in London) will have a pre-sale of the pieces to the NY fashion week tribe on Feb 14 and Feb 15. The collection looks to us to be mostly t shirts, cardigans, leggings – nothing that earth-shaking, and nothing you can’t find at Urban Outfitters, actually. But the t shirts do have the image of the lead singer of British band The Duke Spirit, and they look pretty cool. Also, you can tell your friends you’re wearing McQueen, which is nothing to sneeze at in this economy.