H&M's Weekday expands to Leuven

Streetwear label Weekday has opened a new store of 400 sqm in Leuven. The H&M subsidiary has adapted its store concept to cater for the Belgian city’s student population.

Winning over the student population

Weekday, the offshoot of the Swedish fashion giant H&M that mainly sells streetwear, has occupied the former location of The Sting as its third Belgian store following Antwerp and Brussels. This year, the company is expanding its Belgian operation with new stores set to open in student cities Leuven and Ghent.

In Diestsestraat – Leuven’s second busiest shopping street – the chain occupies 403 sqm in sales floor space. Unlike its predecessor at the spot, Dutch retail chain The Sting, Weekday is occupying only the ground floor as shopping space: the basement has been converted into storage space.

New store concept

This storage space comes in useful, as Weekday deliberately chooses to put just five or six items of each piece of clothing in the racks. If a different size is needed, the shop assistants will fetch it from the storage space. Doing so not only enables the store to put a large range on display, it also makes for a crisp and uncluttered atmosphere.

For the Leuven store, Weekday has also gone for “a brand new shopping experience” through the use of new furniture, involving “ultra-modern elements” to embody the brand’s “bold and aesthetic” character, the press release says. White and metallic tones dominate the interior, with futuristic silvery fitting rooms, a metal case as the check-out and a glass cage as stand-out features.

T-shirts printed on-site

Inside the glass cage, a textile printer sets up shop to print ‘limited edition’ T-shirts by way of silkscreen printing. Every week, Weekday launches a new print under the ‘Zeitgeist’ moniker, which is available in a limited edition in the shop and online.

Weekday, founded in 2002 in Sweden, sells fashion for women and men alike. With the aid of multiple dedicated corners, jeans and denim are a significant part of the range on offer. The chain store has stores in nine countries, where it sells its own products an carries a small selection of external brands, such as shoes by Fila and Vans.