While most of the international high street giants are accessible from Australia’s fair shores, H&M is still hard to come by. Topshop ships to Australia for a very reasonable price, and The Gap and Uniqlo both have plans to open here, but the same cannot be said for fashion’s Ikea equivalent.This is particularly unfortunate given the Swedish chain has just announced a collaboration with champions of high fashion femme Lanvin. Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz claims the aim of the range is to bring H&M to luxury, rather than taking Lanvin to the masses, and calls it “not just about a dress for less.” Although given Lanvin’s prices routinely run at five figures, we can safely bet the collaboration will be far more affordable.

It can be impossible to achieve Lanvin levels of class at prices even remotely close to H&M’s under any other circumstances, so this line is likely to be ripped rapidly from the racks (with all due elegance of course).Short of buying a ticket to Hong Kong – the closest country with an H&M– here are some ways to get your hands on the new collection after its November 24th release date.

ebay: Sure, you’ll be paying a trumped up price for the product, but we’re guessing it will still wind up a lot cheaper than any other piece of Lanvin. H&M’s previous designer collaborations appeared on the online auction site within hours of the clothing going on sale, so while you’re unlikely to get access to the full range through ebay, it’s still worth checking out.

Hire a personal shopper: At at least $95 an hour, personal shoppers aren’t cheap, but if you give them detailed instructions on your exact size, and the pieces you’re interested in, they’ll be able to elbow through the crowds for you, and post your purchases back home. Try Bees Knees or Personal Time Saver in the UK.

Use a proxy: Don’t feel comfortable hiring someone to do your shopping for you? Ask a stranger from the Internet instead. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to pick up a few extra pieces for a small thank-you fee or the promise of payment in kind (remember, we may not have Lanvin, but we do have cheap Uggs). Hit up forums like The Fashion Spot to see if anyone might be interested in helping you out, and use their popularity on the site and positive post feedback as a gauge of how trustworthy they are. 

Use a mail drop: H&M only has online shopping in a few countries, but this doesn’t matter if you use a maildrop service. Just set up a postal address in Germany and get you purchases forwarded on to you, sure you might have to negotiate the online store in a foreign language, and mail drops aren’t particularly low on cost or effort, but they do allow you to pick exactly the pieces you want on your own. BMP offers German maildrop services.


Then again, getting H&M to Australia can be so labour intensive, maybe it is worth booking that ticket to Hong Kong… Or you can buy the mainline from Belinda, we’re honestly not sure which would be cheaper.