Mango HE

by Joe the "tire-remover" in Brands (on December 1, 2008)

The first men’s collection from Mango came out in March. I wasn’t all that interested at the time. Until yesterday, after having lunch with Lola, when I went to have a look in Mango Opéra on her recommendation.

Of course, Mango, for a lot of us, is a girls’ shop which we’ve only been into with our girlfriends or little sisters – until now. And Mango, as you probably also know, is one of Zara’s main competitors: they are both internationally-successful Spanish stores.

mango-cardigan

Back to my story. So I go into Mango, I ask an assistant the way and she directs me to the back of the store. As is often the case with this type of large unisex store, the men’s section is a lost little island in the middle of a vast ocean of women’s items. And it doesn’t take long to look around it all! If I hadn’t come with the idea of writing an article about it, as I was quite busy, I would probably have left straightaway.

Mango bag

But I decided to take a second, closer, look at what I had barely glanced at the first time. And what seemed, overall, fairly ordinary. To see what the clothes are about, you need to look at the label. This is the way I always work: I look at the price, the material, and only then do I unfold the garment to look at the shape.

Mango cardigan

And I very quickly made 2 conclusions: it’s all fairly expensive (still comparing it to Zara) but using better fabric! Let’s take the example of the jumpers. You might have seen the H+M jumper that Tony talked about in September, and you’ve probably been and looked at Zara jumpers in store. If you look closely, you’ll see that the jumpers are mainly made of man-made fibres.

Mango jumper

Au contraire, a nice surprise from Mango: their jumpers are mostly made from wool. That’s unusual! Some are even 100% wool or 100% cashmere like the jumper above. Another example: their scarves. They are also more expensive than usual for a high-street store but with a much more classy touch: they’re 100% wool!

Mango scarf

This men’s collection, called “He by Mango”, also contains jackets and shirts. They seemed good, but nothing special (though I admit I was in a rush and didn’t look at them for very long).

Mango shirt

However, I spent longer looking at their black, slightly waxed jeans. They didn’t look too bad for €65! I’ll go back and try a pair on and let you know…And I have since discovered the entire HE collection is available online from www.mangoshop.com. In fact, that’s where I found the pictures to go with this article.

Mango shoes