I spent five hours camping on Princes Street for the Balmain x H&M Collaboration

It was cold

8 years ago

I love clothes – so queueing for Balmain’s new collaboration with H&M made sense.

Go Hard or Go home

How far would you go for a jacket, which you might not really need, but want badly anyway? We’ve started with an idea of setting up a tent on Princes Street 24h in advance, but ended up by the store at around 5:40 AM on Thursday.

People were already queuing there for quite a while (since 12 AM), and they did it professionally. Blankets, outdoor chairs and even sleeping bags along the store – everyone seemed so prepared, you got the feeling that someone was going to take a hob out of a backpack and start making eggs for breakfast .

Because I COULDN’T BE BOTHERED TO DRESS UP AT 5 AM

They knew what they were doing, we didn’t

This is not the first H&M Collobration with a famous brand, but this time they definitely went big.

Olivier Rousteing managed to combine in this collection – Balmain cult pieces (which in real life are ridiculously overpriced and totally unaffordable), off-scale amount of glitter and the Kardashians, who advertised it.

This combo became a Philosopher’s Stone, turning all H&M items into precious gold, and making a scene of people besieging H&M at night completely sensible.

Can I borrow that blancket, please?

The race to Kendall Jenner’s jacket (which wasn’t even stocked in Edinburgh) had its own benefits.

At the dawn people queuing already could tick all the boxes in “ life lessons you should learn before you turn 45”, friends for life were made and “passion for fashion” united everyone in one noble impulse – but all these only until the doors were open.

At 9am, people instantly turned from friends to sworn enemies (no need to mention what happened to those who tried to cut the queue) and all humane feelings apart from the desire to get a wrist yellow band were abandoned.

In a nutshell, things got rough.

We felt it too

Inside the shop, queuing was prohibited, so people had to wait until the salespeople called your group to the cherished corner, where the actual items were hung.

we managed to get even Balmain double-breasted blazer. For 100 pounds

Wandering around the rest of the shop (but casually a bit closer to the crime scene, of course), and pretending to look at other H&M items, while seeing people carrying out literally every single desired piece was a mental torture.

However, the real deal started, when people were let in to actually shop. They only gave us 10 minutes in the corner and you had try and be fast enough to grab something or everything ( size, colour and sometimes even design didn’t really matter) and just leave, because there was nothing left.

Those people are not getting anything

The collection was sold out online in 3 minutes, and in 1 hour in stores.

All in all, the experience was priceless. Getting at least something means that the next day an attempt to resell it on eBay will be made, because none of the staff bought, while being insane, fits or suits. But at least you can get that profit margin.

I managed to buy one of the dresses, black and white top, Balmain London T-shirt, a famous double-breasted blazer and paid £200, the normal price of a Balmain t-shirt for the lot. Also made all my friends jealous, so it was, of course, worth it.