H&M’s Nyden founder leaves

Oscar Olsson, managing director of Nyden, H&M‘s latest brand start-up, is leaving the organisation to pursue other projects, according to the Business of Fashion.

As confirmed by Olsson’s LinkedIn profile, the entrepreneur has moved on from the Millennial-targeted venture, putting the strategy and future of the Swedish project in serious doubt.

Despite Olsson being the central person of Nyden, it is understood that the existing leadership team will assume his duties until a replacement is found.

Olsson started his journey with H&M in 2013, serving as Global Controller. Soon after, he became Head of Expansion in Switzerland for the Swedish group, before taking charge of the group’s expansion for the region comprising France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland.

In January 2017, he created and directed H&M’s innovation lab, which grew in the summer of 2017 to become Nyden. In April 2018, Nyden released its first capsule line. The collection was made up of a series of five t-shirts for women and four for men.

Self-described as “not a traditional fashion brand,” Nyden avoids dropping seasonal collections but instead enlists the creative talents of ‘co-creators’ to develop capsule collections for its customers.

Four celeb collaborators already tapped by Nyden include Justine Skye, Dua Lupa, Dr Woo and Jerome Boateng. According Nyden’s website, there remain three more big-name collaborators “to be announced.”

Nyden’s collections are all designed from its Los Angeles studio.

For the six months ending May 31, H&M group, which also operates Monki, Cheap Monday and & Other Stories, said sales including VAT were SEK 114.017 billion (US$13.11 billion), up from SEK113.907 billion a year earlier.

The group did not disclose sales figures for its individual brands.