LOCAL FLAVOR: H&M Coming Soon to Southdale

>>UPDATE 10.14.2009: The store opening date has been announced. Click HERE for more.

I first made mention of H&M’s third Minnesota store opening this past spring. Our metro newspaper, The Star Tribune, also reported on this over the summer. The location will be at the Southdale Mall in Edina, MN. Southdale’s fame (at least locally) comes from the fact that it was our country’s first indoor shopping complex…that’s pretty fantastic…but in recent years, this shopping center has taken on a rather dowdy feel…one suburb over in Bloomington, the Mall of America seems to have sapped all of the energy this mall once imbued…

But to me, Southdale will always hold a special place in my heart…for a long time, and in keeping (I guess) with Edina’s “elite” suburban status, this mall housed the only J. Crew in the state…and in high school, we looked forward to paying a visit when we grew tired of paging through catalogs…and back before Macy’s took over Marshall Field’s, this department store’s Minnesota sister was known as Dayton’s…and the Dayton’s at Southdale was fancy enough to even staff a classy pianist on their main concourse…

So, hopefully, H&M stands to breathe some new life into this old soul, and in a modern way…per H&M’s facebook page, the store opening will take place in October…nothing more specific, yet…but I will sure to be on top of it when any more news leaks.

In the meantime, I snapped a couple photos of the boarding over the storefront, which features images of the hot Sean O’Pry (heey beautiful!) and gang for H&M’s Spring/Summer 2009 campaign. I think it’s pretty cool this outpost will be a two-leveler…not that that means much I’m sure…’cause even though the store is slated to be a “full concept store”, I’m pretty sure that if the Mall of America already doesn’t carry the trend lines, this one won’t either… Sad.

NEVERTHELESS! I hope to be there on opening day…maybe there’ll be some cool promos to be had…