The wait is over. H&M is here. After creating a huge buzz over its arrival in San Francisco, Swedish fashion retailer H&M opened the doors to its two new stores in Union Square on Saturday to a seemingly endless line of shoppers.

Known for its trendy and hip styles at affordable prices, H&M Hennes & Mauritz has stores worldwide. The new stores are the only H&M on the West Coast and the first west of Minnesota.

The location on 150 Powell St. will be an H&M flagship, featuring men and women’s clothing and accessories, and one of the largest H&M stores in the country. The other store on 150 Post St. sells only women’s merchandise and features much of the same inventory as the Powell location, but on a smaller scale.

By 9:15 a.m., 45 minutes before the opening, the line of fashionable young men and women, many of them couples, wrapped around almost the entire block – down Powell and around to Stockton all the way to O’Farrell.

“I thought I could beat the line if I got here by 9 a.m. But this is crazy,” said Sheena Sessions, a hospitality management major who ended up waiting in line for over an hour. “I heard that the first two people in line actually camped out and that the line started forming like at 6 a.m.”

What would make so many young people get out of their beds on a Saturday morning to go stand in line? Confused tourists stared, many in hopes of catching a glimpse of a celebrity.

“This one lady came up to me and asked, ‘Who’s he?’ I was like ‘Who’s who?’ She thought we were lined up to see someone famous inside of the store,” said Lori Cuevas, a who joined the line at 8 a.m. “When I told her we were waiting for the store to open, it was like she didn’t believe me.”

Few people, other than those waiting in line, seemed to understand what the big deal is about H&M.

“It’s just a store. They’re acting like the President’s in there,” said one woman, condescendingly, as she walked past the red carpet at the front of the store, minutes before the opening.

“That lady’s obviously not from here, or else she’d have known that people in San Francisco wouldn’t line up to see the President,” said Mark Curley, a San Francisco resident who overheard the woman’s comment while he was stopped to watch the manager of H&M cut the store’s big red ribbon.

The music blared from the inside of the store, teasing the mass of anxious soon-to-be H&M shoppers waiting to be the first inside. Store managers joined the crowd in a countdown, and then they cheered.

Two-by-two the shoppers yelled with joy as they entered “their new favorite store” (as H&M boasts on its shopping bags). Then it was back to waiting – waiting to try on clothes and waiting to pay.

“I feel like I’ve been standing in line forever,” said 20-year-old Chelsea Hill, as she waited in the checkout line. “But it was worth it. I’d been waiting for this day since I don’t know when.”