The Balmain x H&M collaboration hit stores today and to no one's surprise, things got cray, real fast. Balmain's creative director Olivier Rousteing was good for his word, stopping by a Paris store to take in the scene. He entered through a back entrance early in the morning ("for security reasons") and took a selfie with a super-fan who had been waiting since 2 P.M. Wednesday. Yikes.
The collab launched in 250 stores across 61 countries; in an email, an H&M spokesperson told us it's been "a huge success. Overall, the collection has sold extremely well, but we will not be commenting on sales." Pieces aren't likely to be restocked (it's not been done for past collections), and they've definitely already hit resale sites. The beaded long-sleeve mini dress was the range's most expensive piece, retailing for approximately $570. You're out of luck if you want to pop into your neighborhood H&M and grab one, but you can find it on eBay...for $1,500.
The below shopping scene is from Turkey's largest H&M and watching it is equal parts hypnotic and terrifying.
A video posted by zeynepbilginblog (@zeynepbilginblog) on Nov 5, 2015 at 5:47am PST
Lines were huge globally, though they couldn't have grown much larger than what the Paris store saw. H&M had coffee et croissants on hand for early arrivals (and a ton of security), but WWD reported there was still a several hours-long wait to get in by midmorning. London saw huge crowds too.
Lines at the Champs-Élysées H&M
