The Swedish clothing retailer founded as Hennes in 1947 is H&M.
Entrepreneur Erling Persson opened the first Hennes shop in Västerås, Sweden, in 1947. The Swedish word “Hennes” means “hers,” reflecting the store’s original focus on women’s clothing. Persson’s business was influenced partly by high-volume American retailing he saw after World War II.
The company’s modern name came later. In 1968, Persson acquired Mauritz Widforss, a Stockholm retailer associated with hunting apparel. That deal added menswear and led to the name Hennes & Mauritz, commonly abbreviated as H&M.
Monki, Lindex, and COS are separate clothing labels and are easy to confuse with H&M. COS is part of the broader H&M Group, but it was not the name of the retailer founded in 1947. H&M later expanded internationally, including its first store outside Scandinavia in London in 1976.