Bershka strengthens presence in sweden with second store in H&M's home country

Madrid – Bershka, the leading youth fashion brand of the Inditex group, is expanding its presence in Sweden with the opening of its second store in the country. It is the group's largest chain by turnover after Zara, according to the 2025 financial year results. The new establishment has now opened its doors to the public in the heart of Stockholm.

The city is the country's capital and the home of the H&M group, one of Inditex's main global competitors. It was the location chosen by the Spanish company to advance Bershka's growth in the Baltic region. This was achieved through the opening of its first brick and mortar store in Sweden exactly one year ago, in April 2025. The point-of-sale, spanning approximately 640 square metres, is located inside the Westfield Mall of Scandinavia in Solna, on the outskirts of Stockholm. With this opening, the group and the brand marked the milestone of entering a new European market for Bershka's physical retail operations.

With the clear objective of building on this momentum, Bershka has now opened its second store in Sweden, within the Stockholm metropolitan area. This time, it has opened in the very heart of the Swedish capital, specifically inside the Gallerian shopping centre in Stockholm. The shopping and leisure complex features major retailers such as Bonage; Bik Bok; Brothers; Intimissimi; Jack&Jones and Levi’s. Bershka now operates from a retail space of nearly 600 square metres of usable sales area, distributed over two floors.

Featuring menswear and womenswear collections

Designed by the increasingly renowned Spanish architecture and interior design studio El Departamento, the store offers the brand's latest menswear and womenswear collections from its Bershka, BSK and Man lines. For this commercial offering, the youth fashion brand, in collaboration with the design studio, has given its latest store model a new twist. It moves away from the concept of a fluid, open-plan spatial design, like the one implemented for the first store opening in Westfield Mall of Scandinavia. Instead, it embraces a much more “encapsulated” and “boutique” style format. This spatial reformulation is said to enrich the in-store shopping experience, equally contributing to highlighting the brand's offerings and structuring the customer journey.

The main elements of this design strategy include the construction of a series of open “boxes” that simulate the different rooms of a typical boutique. The uniqueness and lightness of these elements are enhanced by thin, opposing walls, with a void in between that highlights the distance between the “boxes”. Within their respective perimeters, the store's various commercial and service areas are developed. The design is further enhanced by bare, open-ended partitions in the passageways between the “boxes”; open ceilings that do not meet the walls of these space-defining “boxes”; and exposed installations. These are the most prominent features of the space's conception, shaped through the use of raw materials like stainless steel; ceramics intended to evoke a domestic feel; and notably, maple wood, which adds warmth and serves as a nod to the local context.

“The project starts from a clear premise,” which is to “move away from the conventional open-plan model, common in shopping centres, where large spaces tend to create undifferentiated environments,” stated Bershka's management in a note. In contrast, “the store proposes a new way of understanding retail space, based on a sequence of environments that build a more structured shopping experience.” From this, the project team has sought to redefine “the concept of youth retail” from “a city closely linked to contemporary design.”