Style and functionality, the Arket formula doubles in Italia

When it was published in 1899, Skönhet för alla, ("Beauty for All") was a huge success, in Scandinavia but not only: in that book, Swedish intellectual Ellen Key reflected on how modern homes should be designed, with bright, functional spaces, beautiful and useful furniture, with a limited number of objects to take care of so as not to restrict women's freedom. Today, the Svenska Slöjdföreningen, the Swedish Society for Industrial Design, whose history begins in 1845, defines design on its website as "a working process that adopts the user's perspective and develops according to the user's needs". This long thread that unites aesthetic and, if we want, political vision, passes from the planetary success of Ikea to Arket, the youngest brand of the (Swedish) H&M group: born in 2017, present in Europe, China and Korea, it is led by managing director Pernilla Wohlfahrt, who has a long career in the group, of which she was also head of design and creative director.

Pernilla Wohlfahrt, managing director di Arket

Wohlfahrt is in Rome for the opening of Arket's first shop in the city, the second in Italia after the one opened in 2024 in Milan, in the historic Medelan building in Piazza Cordusio. For its arrival in the capital, Arket has chosen another historic building in Via Frattina, a stone's throw from Via Condotti and Piazza di Spagna: 'The Italian market is doing very well, and I am happy about that because customers have a very developed and demanding sense of fashion,' he explains. 'Of course, in the historic centres of cities like Milan and Italia, it is complex to find a location with the right space to tell all the aspects of our brand. Rome in this sense is as peculiar as it is beautiful. Of course we are also looking for spaces in other Italian cities. Before opening a shop, however, we always evaluate the data coming from our e-commerce (available in 70 countries, ed.), which allows us to understand where our customers are and what they prefer, and what they would therefore expect to find in one of our physical shops'.

As in Milan, the Roman store is an architectural hymn to Swedish modernism, with essential and airy spaces: "The Milan store is about 1,000 square metres, this one is 665, but they are very similar," adds the manager. "However, we always like to interpret the place where we are: in this case, for example, our design team had a connecting staircase between floors made of Levanto red marble, much used by the ancient Romans.

Look Arket PE 2026

The women's, men's, kids' and home collections, with their sophisticated, essential design signed by creative director Ella Soccorsi, also tell another aspect of Arket's formula, which supports and promotes slow living, wellbeing, and a gentle approach to living and consuming: 'We have just re-launched the Activewear line, with which we debuted in 2017, because there is a lot of demand,' notes Pernilla. 'Nowadays, even when you work out, you want to be well dressed, this is also a way of taking care of yourself. It is a concept that is very close to our hearts, as is sustainability, understood in a broad sense. Our styles are timeless, without precise seasonality. We work with the highest quality materials possible, to extend the life of our creations and possibly make them even more beautiful with time. We prefer to use monofibre fabrics whenever possible (75% of the fibres used by Arket are cotton and wool, only 10% synthetic and polyester from 2025 is entirely recycled, as stated in the H&M group's 2025 report, ed.), and we offer used collection, rental services for kids' clothes, repair and online resale".

Arket's ambition is also to position itself next to Cos as the group's highest brand, following the contemporary and skilful evolution of fast fashion to intercept that large segment of style-conscious, but also budget-conscious customers that has been progressively forgotten by many fashion brands, revealed by the succession of designers coming from 'high' fashion and now creative for brands such as Uniqlo (Clare Waight Keller) and Zara (John Galliano). The success of this strategy is confirmed by that of Arket: even though H&M does not disclose the revenues for its individual brands, the 2025 Annual Report states that Arket is the one to have opened the most shops, a good 13, compared to the 117 closed by H&M.