Louisville.com (via WAVE-TV) posted an article Thursday morning stating that Swedish fast fashion retailer H&M would be opening a store at Oxmoor Center this fall, a dream come true for many of Louisville’s fashionistas who have had to travel to Cincinnati and Indianapolis – 90 minutes and 2 hours respectively – for their fix.
Then, the conflicting reports began.
Thursday evening, Nicole Christie, an H&M representative from the communications department, had contacted both WDRB-TV and WAVE-TV to state that, contrary to what was announced, H&M “[did] not have anything to announce for Louisville at this time” regarding said arrival in Louisville. WAVE stood by their story while WDRB ran the announcement from Christie.
Louisville.com did contact Christie to clarify her statement – pondering why she didn’t just contact WAVE to say they were wrong and should retract the story in the first place as opposed to what she actually did – only to receive this email this morning:
“Thank you for your email. I will reiterate what I said to both Matt McCutcheon from Wave3 when I spoke to him yesterday evening and WDRB, which is that we do not have anything to announce for Louisville at this time.”
A few hours after WDRB ran their initial report, H&M’s customer service department countermanded Christie to the FOX affiliate, stating that yes, there would be a store opening at Oxmoor Center this fall, prompting a revision to the original article.
Then this morning, one of Louisville.com's interns – who works at Oxmoor Center – attended a meeting. Here is what was sent to us:
"So I work at Oxmoor Mall and there was a mall meeting today, turns out there was a press release that H&M was coming to Oxmoor Mall 2014 but turns out a lease was never signed and media jumped the gun. Saw we just put up an article about it, didn't know if this info was useful."
WAVE has stood their ground with their initial report and on-air announcement, as has Louisville.com. This will be the status quo until the lack of communication is resolved between H&M’s various professional departments, with a definitive announcement made to all of Louisville's media outlets and Oxmoor Center on whether the Swedes will or will not come to Louisville in the fall of 2013.
- H&M to come to Oxmoor Center in Autumn of 2013 [Louisville.com]
Photos: en.wikipedia/Loudrocksurfer and en.wikipedia/Yasu.
