Since posting my open letter to the CEO of H&M on Monday evening I have been completely overwhelmed by the reception its received and the support that I have been shown. I have also been shocked to be told over and over again at how common an occurrence this is.
Earlier today I received this email from Camilla Henriksson, the Head of Marketing and Communications at H&M Home.
I am really happy to have heard from them. It was the response I was hoping for and more. I think I’ll leave it to my reply describes best how I feel,
“Dear Camilla,
Thank you for your reply and for going some way to answering the question in my letter. I can see that you recognised that it wasn’t written or sent lightly and that you have reacted accordingly in your apology and product recall. I can appreciate that this is a big undertaking and for this, I thank you.
I too use the world as inspiration when working on new ideas and I find this to be one of the greatest joys of doing what I get to do. And I also work hard on avoiding treading on anyone’s toes, I think we can both agree, it is a fine line to walk at times and a very well recognised and well-worn one too!
Issuing this letter openly has been an overwhelming experience, the show of support I have received has been extraordinary. But the number of similar stories shared by other small designers seeing their ideas seemingly stolen out from under them and feeling utterly hopeless and helpless to do anything and sadly fearful of the repercussions if they did, was totally unexpected.
It took me a lot of courage to do and I am glad my letter has shone a light on this.
To me the design world is a place where I can feel like we can all work together to try to make things better (in an aesthetic sense) and I hope moving forward we all can and look out for each other with this in mind as we do.
Yours sincerely,
Bridie Hall”
