H&M continued its South Florida domination with Friday's opening of a new location in the shopping Shangri-La known as Aventura Mall. With two massive outposts of the Swedish brand opening less than a month apart, it seems that no one can stop affordable fashion from infiltrating Miami.
Throngs of eager shoppers were lined up by the hundreds Friday morning to be the first to score sweet opening-day deals in the two-story megastore. Check out pics of the neverending line after the jump.
See also:
- H&M to Open Third South Florida Store in Aventura
- Inside H&M's Permanent Lincoln Road Store: An Accessories Boutique, $500 Giveaways, and More
So how does the Aventura outpost stack up against the Lincoln Road location?
For one thing, they've got a kid's department.
"This is the only full concept store that has kid's. Our kid's department is one of the departments that has grown the most out of all our collections. There were a lot of people historically that didn't know we had children's," said Nicole Christie, communications manager at H&M.
Secondly, as far as square footage, the two are nearly matched at around 25,000 square feet, but the Aventura store has more room for product, according to Christie.
"The difference is that Lincoln Road has so many special features, ceiling height, etc., that takes away. It's building space that's not really selling space," Christie told us. "This store has almost as much square footage, but it's all selling space where we can hang garments. There we have the big screen, we have a lot of the details that are part of the square footage but we can't put product there. So we can fit more in the same space here because of the structure."
Bottom line: both stores are big, bright and have an insane assortment of affordably priced, super-stylish duds for women, men and in Aventura -- kids too.
And as for occupying the rest of Florida: "We are in negotiations all over, of course. It's a major market for us, Florida's gonna be amazing. We're all around but we have to enter Florida the right way: Lincoln, Aventura, and then we move on. For us this is the perfect launch, the perfect way to come into Miami. And now the doors open up for more interesting things," said Daniel Kulle, the North American president for H&M.
"We are happy to do in the same season Lincoln and Aventura, and the location here is perfect. We really love the location where we are. The mall is the top mall in America, so just to be here with roughly 25,000 square footage is major for us."
The new mega-store is located at 19501 Biscayne Boulevard, and their hours will be Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., and Sunday noon to 8 p.m.
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