H&M launched their latest high-low collab with Jimmy Choo on Saturday. Celebs from the Hilton sisters to Ru Paul and M.I.A. gathered to celebrate the new products, which include everything you need to build the "perfect party outfit".

Shoppers at H&M's Oxford Street London store were given allocated shopping times to keep grappling crowds under control. Thanks to those eager beavers, loads of the gear is up on ebay, for those of us who live nowhere near an H&M store.
 
It seems that each week, a retail store somewhere releases a new high-low collab. The H&M collab with Karl Lgerfeld was widely regarded as the first ever of its kind, launching a raft of retail high-lows that include Christopher Kane for Topshop, Viktor & Rolf for H&M and Romance Was Born and Elke for Sportsgirl.

Even niche boutiques like ALIFE's Rivington Club and Colette love to get their collab on. ARC have run the ALIFE Rivington Club x Saucony “Jazz Shadow”, ARC Stan Smith '80s collab and more, while Collette have run a collab with Rodarte, Fafi and Timberland.

Sometimes these collabs seem like a natural fit. But others just seem as though retailers are copping out from employing talented, creative designers in the first place.

Perhaps it's less expensive to just give someone a one-off project once they've built their own brand name, but it would be even more awesome to give great designers a career kick-start, and retailers in-built cred by employing amazing in-house designers and encouraging their creativity. Of course, everyone involved can give you an excuse as to why this is just not going to happen.

Every time a new collab is launched, the question of who really benefits from these ventures crops up. For young designers like Elke Kramer or Romance Was Born, the collab means a much-needed injection of cash thanks to high-volume orders. Plus, they may not want to be limited by the requirements of the store's customers. For mass-market retailers, they of course get the cred associated with the underground, independent designer.

But the hot young collab partners that mass retailers crave only built their cred by thinking creatively to make products with integrity. And there's nothing to stop major retailers having exactly the same cred. Just employ the right people from the get go, and the cred is yours for the taking.

Read our interview with H&M's creative director at last year's L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Week.