A visit to Palais de Tokyo’s wall of magazines ended up with an interesting discovery: Show Off#, published by the fashion department in the Royal Academy of fine arts in Antwerp. This product’s main goal, I assume, is to promote the school’s program and attract students all the way to Belgium, but it’s delivering more than expected…

In between students’ sketches and impressive finished designs, there are some  surprisingly interesting articles. For instance, the one that describes final year students’ encounter with H&M representatives – Margareta Van Den Bosch, head of designer collections, and Beata Aurell, responsible for design work placements and internships.

During the conversation, Van Den Bosch shared some juicy details about the company’s collaboration with Madonna (2006-2007). “I went to see her to talk about her favorite clothes. She really didn’t have a clue. All she said was that she liked trench coats , High heels and black dresses, which wasn’t a lot to work with…. She kept changing her mind: she first wanted one fabric then another “. Luckily, almost everything worked out eventually… “Only the shoes were a problem : she wanted very high heels, over 10 cm, and we told her that wouldn’t work. She insisted and we gave in. They just didn’t sell”.

Don’t you giggle just yet, this is a magazine published by an academy. You are bound to learn something about H&M by the end of the text… 600 (!) people are drawing the designs of the Swedish giant today. The company now has 74,000 employees worldwide, 81 % of them are women. The H&M team wouldn’t reveal any details about a designer’s pay-check.  Oh well,  they already gave us Madonna.