They came, they lined up – and then they shopped.
Several hundred people showed up early at Hamilton Place mall Thursday morning for the noon grand opening of a new H&M store.
It’s the 504th U.S. outlet for the giant Swedish retailer, which offers fashion-forward clothing for women, men and children at low prices and has about 4,200 stores worldwide in 68 countries.
“I’m going to miss a class for this,” said Savannah Thompson, a freshman at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who was among the first 200 people in line who were given a prize: an H&M Access to Fashion Pass valued between $10 and $300, depending on the shopper’s luck of the draw.
Thompson brought a bag of used clothing to turn in at H&M so it can be recycled. H&M, in return, gives shoppers a 15 percent discount. Thompson likes H&M’s plan to use only recycled or other sustainably sourced materials in all its products 13 years from now.
