Hennes & Mauritz subsidiary Arket opens first store in Switzerland

Until the opening the brand was only available online, but now customers can enjoy the complete ARKET experience, including a vegetarian New Nordic Food café, in an area of around 800 sq m.

The concept of this brand is a marketplace with exquisite products for women, men and children, but the range also includes household goods. The aim is to offer durable, well-made products that will be loved and worn for a long time. The product presentation is of high quality and very consistent with the goods on display.
The values of the brand- archive, archetypes and market- are repeatedly used for the next steps and serve as a basis for further development. ARKET is an allusion to the meaning of the word, a sheet of paper, which is also be used as a basis for many new ideas.

According to a press release, the renovation and revitalization of the whole historic property with its many stained-glass windows cost around SFR 100 million and will now be completed after around three years. The building has 4600 sq m of retail space spread over three floors, with modern workplaces being created on the floors above on around 5600 sq m – right in the heart of Zurich. In addition to ARKET, tenants include Massimo Dutti, Lush and General Motors with a new retail strategy for electric vehicles. Sustainability was an important topic during the conversion of the property, and the historic building fabric was brought up to date in collaboration with the conservation authorities. According to an announcement from Swiss Life, this has now resulted in silver certification from the internationally recognized sustainability label DGNB.