Three months after Madonna launched her tracksuit in three colors, bountiful stocks of the girl’s materials hang on the massive retailer’s racks, their “Madonna & Crew ♥ H&M” labels begging the question: Does H&M feel the same way?

Compared to the mad rush and instant sellout of Stella McCartney’s capsule collection for H&Mlast year, her BFF Madge’s piece is a dud. H&M says that’s not a fair comparison. Stella designed a whole 30- to 50-piece line herself. Madonna’s contribution “is just a tracksuit that we had designed,” H&M’s U.S. spokesperson said. That’s a different message from the line that went out here, there and everywhere at launch time, stating the pop star “designed a trendy tracksuit” and would be “designing limited edition sportswear” for the stores.

Asked specifically about the performance of the piece, which Ms. Ciccone and crew agreed to wear backstage on tour, the H&M spokesperson said it was doing “very well,” but admitted that wasn’t based on any numbers—which the company doesn’t share, anyway—but instead on company expectations. Meanwhile, H&M doesn’t have any plans to work with Madge in the future, and they’ve been giving away Madgewear for free over at the H&M MySpace page.

« Previous Post Next Post »