STOCKHOLM - RETAIL giant Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) said on Thursday the founder of Japanese label Comme des Garcons would design its guest collection this autumn, when the Swedish firm also opens its first stores in Tokyo.

The collaboration with Rei Kawakubo is the latest with the glitterati of fashion and pop that has ranged from Madonna to Kylie Minogue and from Karl Lagerfeld to Stella McCartney.

Kawakubo, who founded Comme des Garcons in 1973, will design a collection for men and women and some children's clothes as well as accessories and a unisex perfume.

Quite unlike H&M's more down-to-earth style aimed at the masses, Kawakubo's clothes have more in common with conceptual art than mainstream fashion, often breaking with many of the traditional rules of design.

H&M has collaborated with a long list of designers in recent years and though the collections make up a fraction of overall sales - which totalled 78 billion Swedish crowns (S$17.9 billion) in 2007 - they draw in shoppers to the stores and bolster the H&M brand.

Crowds queued outside H&M stores in November last year to get their hands on a line designed by Roberto Cavalli, the fashion chain's most recent guest designer.

The clothes by the 'king of animal prints' were on sale at a fraction of the hundreds of dollars they usually cost.

Comme des Garcons, known for austere colours and stark, architectural designs, has shops in over 25 countries. -- REUTERS