Dedicated followers of fashion began queuing from yesterday afternoon to get their hands on the collaboration and to meet Versace's creative mastermind: Donatella Versace.
It's not every day a luxury fashion house on the scale of Versace and its pint-sized, platinum-haired creative director Donatella Versace descend upon the Great British high street, but that's exactly what happened on London's Regent Street this morning.
The 56-year-old, in town to launch her hotly-anticipated collaboration with the Swedish fast-fashion retailer, was flanked by a 400-strong queue of eager shoppers as she made the short walk from her chauffeured Maserati to H&M's flagship store at 8.30am.
David Mills, a menswear design student at the nearby London College of Fashion, was first in the queue and one of five shoppers picked to meet and have his photo taken with Ms Versace.
"She was so nice; my heart was racing and I was really shaking, but it was amazing," he said. Mills began queuing outside the store at 4.45pm yesterday, but his dedication paid off as he emerged toting three brightly-coloured shopping bags: "I got everything I wanted in the sizes I wanted as well".
Shoppers encompassing a variety of ages were given wristbands allocating a specific time at which they could enter the store. Slots were limited to 10-minute periods and customers were only allowed to buy one of each item.
Rhea Verma, a fellow student London College of Fashion, was the first to walk out from the store with her purchases. "They picked me to go and meet Donatella, and they told us we would have to go back out in the queue, but then Donatella was like 'No, just stay, get whatever you want,'" she said. Verma began queuing at 1am to pick up jewellery for her mother and sister, spending around £50 in total. "I was planning on getting the leather studded dress, but I didn't quite like it when I saw it up close" she said.
Dedicated father and husband Michael Rosen, 64, joined the queue at 5am with a fold-up chair to fulfil orders for his wife and daughter who are away on holiday. "How many dads do that?" he joked. He anticipated spending around £1,000 on "leather jackets, bags; anything which I think would suit them."
The collection, which starts at £20 for accessories and climbs to £179.99 for a leather mini-dress, heavily references the Italian label's glamorous archives. Versace's catwalk designs normally retail from £120 for costume jewellery to over £6,000 for a silk evening gown. "I can't wait to see how H&M's wide audience will make these pieces their own" Donatella Versace said.
The Versace for H&M range went on sale in 300 stores worldwide and online as of this morning, but the website soon crashed due to the heavy demand.
