Sitting with H&M’s Margareta Van den Bosch is like taking tea with a powerful but kindly aunt. For 22 years she has commanded what the masses wear, first as head of design at H&M and now as creative adviser. Yet she is softly spoken and humble about her role in the revolution of high street clothing consumption.

“I don’t know that I invented fast fashion. We just have always focused on high quality products at low prices,” she demurs in her lilting Swedish accent.

But H&M is more than low prices. Its ever-evolving ranges are always on or beyond trend giving the cash poor amongst us entrée into an inspiring world of sartorial delight. It doesn’t just deliver cheap clothes, but cheap covetable clothes that elicit oohs and sighs from friends and workmates.

H&M’s collaborations alone are world-beating. “Karl Lagerfeld was the first to collaborate with us. Well, of course we had to ask him first. He would never go second, you can imagine!” she says.

This March Matthew Williamson joins the party, with one drop of his floral creations released on March 23 and another to follow on April 13th. The British designer follows Viktor and Rolf, Comme des Garcons, Madonna, Stella McCartney, Kylie and Roberto Cavalli.

It’s long been assumed that H&M designers scour runway shows to rip off designs for their ranges like fashion pirates. It turns out they design their wares just like everyone else. “We make up our own collections a year in advance, we don’t follow the catwalks and we can’t just turn out designs in two weeks like everyone thinks we can,” she says.

The H&M design team work on three collections at a time; one year ahead, six months ahead and re-ordering current ranges in reaction to customer demand. For inspiration her team travel extensively, visit as many gigs and exhibitions as possible and are encouraged to use the enormous library of art books.

While most H&M collections sell out fast, even they make mistakes. “Our worst was in 1989-1990 and it was pastels. I though I could just do black and pastels, but no-one bought all those soft colours and I learned very quickly that you have to have a range of different colours across the store, you can’t force the customer to wear what you design.”

Fast fashion has two factors working against it now - the global financial crisis and sustainability concerns. The company’s profits fell 12% in the first quarter of this year, though that was mainly due to currency. “Not everyone has the money in their pocket to buy investment clothes, so I really don’t think that will be a problem for us,” she says.

Indeed the company which already has 1700 stores will continue to expand, opening in Lebanon this year, then Israel and Korea in 2010. It bought Cheap Monday last year and always takes on 20-30 trainees annually.

Of course I have to ask her, because you all asked me to, if we will have H&M in Australia. It's a "no" from Van den Bosch. Not a no never, but a no for now. With the closest H&M store to Australia in Hong Kong, at eight hours flight makes it not so fast, and not so cheap for us Antipodeans for the time being.