John Galliano | Source: The Creator Blog

PARIS, France – The process of writing this season’s wrap-up left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. Looking back, several of the most salient themes from this round of fashion weeks involve unsavoury behaviour, gossip and highly unprofessional comments from some of the industry’s most important figures.

Whether it was John Galliano’s inexcusable anti-Semitic rant captured on video for the whole world to watch, the scrum of increasingly aggressive street style photographers hunting editors down like game before the shows, or the distasteful comments made by Patrick Thomas, chief executive of Hermès, regarding the stake built up in its business by LVMH, it seemed everywhere you looked this fashion week members of the industry were behaving badly.

With all the whispering, gossiping and backbiting going on, it’s surprising that anyone even noticed the clothes. So, let’s start with the clothes then!

1. OUTERWEAR EVERYWHERE AND A FEW FASHION PRINTS

Click here to view the embedded video.

Outerwear was everywhere this season, reflecting a growing understanding amongst designers that coats, jackets, parkas and ponchos get lots of wear and are the first statement of individual style, and therefore deliver a big bang for the consumer buck. Joseph Altuzarra, Alexander Wang, and Burberry’s Christopher Bailey were amongst the designers at the vanguard of this outerwear moment.

Thakoon showed one of the best collections of the season in a gilded hall at New York’s Plaza Hotel, with stunning contrasts of mismatched prints inspired by Masai tribes. It felt like we were in Paris, which I guess was the point as the collection also looked to French aristocracy for visual cues. The offsite location stood out from the increasingly chaotic spaces at Lincoln Center and Milk Studios. Ambience and atmosphere count for a lot when you’re trying to create a mood and put on a real show. Bravo Mr. Panichgul.

Rodarte and Proenza Schouler also delivered stellar collections, demonstrating the continued evolution of their own special design signatures. Proenza Schouler’s Navajo knits and prints were a knock-out, while Rodarte showed their second consecutive highly creative collection which one could actually envision hanging on a retail rail – and selling.

Although there were some great fashion moments in London, overall, the week was not as strong as usual. One notable exception was Mary Katrantzou, whose signature digital prints delivered massive runway impact in a tightly focused collection that for the first time expanded to new categories like knitwear, a smart way to expand her offering beyond dresses.

Jonathan Saunders’ collection of colour-blocking (and the surprise introduction of menswear!) proved he is definitely now back on firm footing in London after a hiccup during the seasons he spent in New York. And, Giles Deacon put out a focused fetishist collection that showed his more serious, sombre side. Indeed, for many an editor, his was the best show of London Fashion Week, and that hasn’t been something we’ve heard for awhile.

Ann Demeulemeester’s show in Paris was a beautiful vision of primal female warriors. Lanvin was gorgeous, as usual. Céline showed off the on-going evolution of Phoebe Philo’s “new minimalism,” with a more graphic and colourful show. And Rick Owens brought a kind of couture quality to his singular dark aesthetic of carefully constructed clothes.

2. THINK BEFORE WE TWEET

Derek Blasberg Tweet | Source: Twitter

It seemed like just another fashion month, and then, with the high-profile meltdown of John Galliano, everything changed in a matter of hours. Soon, the fashion gossip mill was in a frenzy, turbocharged by Twitter which made the whole situation more ugly as the days went by and speculation about Galliano’s successor intensified after he was first suspended, and ultimately dismissed by LVMH.

A tweet by Derek Blasberg from backstage at the Katy Perry concert in Paris, citing an anonymous source which ‘confirmed’ the widespread rumour that Riccardo Tisci would be named Galliano’s successor set off further speculation on websites and blogs, who sometimes took Mr. Blasberg’s comments as though they had come straight from an official Dior press release. I found at least one website that took the Tisci rumour and reported it as fact, without any mention of the source at all.

But Mr. Galliano wasn’t alone. Rumours about the futures of Stefano Pilati, Hannah McGibbon, and Christophe Decarnin dogged designers and lit up the internet throughout Paris Fashion Week, creating a virtual feeding frenzy of immense proportions. We were an industry feeding on ourselves.

So dear fellow members of the fashion Twitterati, let’s think before we tweet. Careers and businesses can be impacted by what may seem like an innocent bit of speculation on Twitter, but can quickly turn into boldfaced headlines on major fashion websites, a hugely destabilising force at the most critical moments during the fashion calendar. We are all still learning how to use this powerful tool responsibly.

3. STREETSTYLE PAPARAZZI

Click here to view the embedded video.

Over the past few seasons, the number of photographers outside the shows has ballooned as interest in street style photography (and street style stardom) has soared. It’s been an amazing phenomenon to observe as many previously behind-the-scenes women such as Yasmin Sewell, Caroline Issa and Taylor Tomasi now provide inspiration to hundreds of thousands of fashion lovers around the world, appearing in outfits that are often more interesting than what is on the runway.

But the rapid rise of street photography also has a darker side. The ‘bloggers walk’ in the Jardin des Tuileries, site of many major Paris shows, is now completely out of control. Indeed, it’s become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the aggressive paparazzi who stalk Hollywood celebrities outside bars and clubs and a few of the bad apples amongst the hordes of photographers that accost editors as they come in and out of shows.

Several street style bloggers told me confidentially that the competition is extremely fierce for getting the best photographs, which can then be sold on to global editions of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar each for as little as $200, but up to $1000 or more.

Word to the wise: if you build a relationship with the women you’d like to photograph, and treat them with a bit of respect, you’ll be much more likely to get a great shot where they look their best and aren’t running to avoid you. Chasing them around, getting in their way, and coaxing them to come out of their cars is a sure fire way of alienating the objects of your fancy.

The best streetstyle photographers are streetsmart and dashing figures who build passionate online followings for these fashion personalities through the power of their photos. They compose beautiful shots that are flattering to their subjects and still interesting enough to spark a conversation, reflected in the hundreds and hundreds of people who chime in to say what they think. And most of all, they are gentlemen (or gentlewomen.)

4. CONSUMER PARTICIPATION

New York Fashion Week | Source: Fabsugar

While there has been a general trend towards smaller shows and presentations, PR professionals tell me they have been dealing with unprecedented demand for seats, making allocations more and more difficult. At Céline, many senior editors from the UK were forced to stand and more than one front-row blogger complained to me about not having access to Givenchy or YSL.

But alongside the growing number of requests from traditional media, major retail outlets, boutiques, online retailers, bloggers, and social media managers, more and more consumers are no longer content to simply watch the livestream at home. They too want to attend the shows in person and be part of the action, a trend which was most apparent in New York.

For several seasons, American Express has been inviting its cardmembers to attend shows in its Skybox at the tents, but these attendees have been somewhat removed from view: observing as opposed to participating in the show environment.

In contrast, at the Jason Wu show, I was seated next to a section allocated to Nordstrom, which had chosen to give away most of its seats to top clients who had flown in specially for the event from across the country. Indeed, department store buyers told me the pressure to find seats for top consumers is “enormous.” If a woman spends more than $1m in a store, she has come to expect VIP treatment.

The enthusiastic ladies at the Jason Wu show asked me questions about what I did and were eager to learn about the fashion personalities in the front row. It was a refreshing conversation with people who were truly curious about fashion as a culture. That the clothes on the runway weren’t available to buy for several months was apparently not a concern.

5. IMMEDIACY VS. EXCLUSIVITY

Moda Operandi screenshot | Source: Moda Operandi

Other businesses were attempting to satisfy growing consumer interest in fashion week through pre-orders. Burberry and Proenza Schouler have been offering direct buying from the runway for a few seasons now. But this time around, there was a lot of buzz about Moda Operandi, the new fashion e-commerce business founded by Lauren Santo Domingo and my friend and former McKinsey colleague Aslaug Magnusdottir.

Their offering of high-profile flash sales of the latest runway collections from some of the industry’s most celebrated designers certainly had people talking. Having coined the term “pretail,” the Moda Operandi founders have also cleverly suggested that the insights gleaned from their sales will help brands to merchandise their stores and work with other wholesalers, knowing what styles are most popular based on real consumer data. And, because they take a 50 percent deposit on all purchases in advance, the business operates with a positive cash flow model similar to the one that made Michael Dell’s company famously successful. In the approximately 6 months between payment and delivery, Moda Operandi can use the deposits paid by consumers to finance the working capital costs of running its business, and also giving a much-needed deposit to designers, who can also benefit from upfront cashflow to finance production.

But relying on this kind of financial model also creates other restrictions. When a consumer pays for things on Moda Operandi, they can never get their cash back. According to the terms and conditions, returns are only possible for apparel and footwear products, and even then, only for store credit. Everything else is not returnable. Some women I spoke to weren’t deterred by this, and had already excitedly logged on to the website to shop, but others were bothered by having to take all the financial risk to buy clothes on Moda Operandi. Why not wait, they asked, for the clothes to arrive in store if they would have to wait 6 months for delivery anyway?

Meanwhile Tom Ford, in his usual contrarian approach, has defied the trend towards fashion immediacy and severely limited access to his collections, going so far as to having journalists sworn to secrecy and sign non-disclosure agreements about his presentation in London. Is Mr. Ford taking fashion a bit too seriously? Or, has he found a brilliant way to drum up even more interest in his clothes as they hit stores in a few months time by orchestrating a fashion media crescendo at the same time. Only time will tell.

One other website of note this season is my-wardrobe.com which has just had its first major facelift under former Grazia editor Fiona Mcintosh who joined as creative director in February. Naturally, there are flourishes of Grazia in the yellow highlighted design and snappy copy, a smart way to deliver on the company’s new everyday luxury strategy, fueled by a recent £6m investment injection from Balderton Capital.

Grazia of course is one of the most powerful sales tools for women’s fashion of the moment. Designers frequently tell me that if their designs are featured in Grazia, they sell out everywhere. As a weekly magazine featuring things that are in store now, I’ve always wondered why Bauer Media has not created an online version of its magazine to at least earn affiliate revenue for all the products it manages to sell, if not set up a full-fledged e-commerce site. It seems like a very big missed opportunity that my-wardrobe.com is now going after.

6. JUST NATALIE

Natalie Massenet and Jeremy Langmead | Source: Net a Porter

In an industry that has been named and shamed this season, there is at least one individual that is setting a good example.

Since our Fashion Pioneers interview last summer, Natalie Massenet has continued her ascent to the top of fashion’s tech elite, not by acting like a grand poobah but by focusing on building her business. Whereas so many in our industry can get complacent or become tyrants (or both!) once they are firmly ensconced in the front row, Natalie is the kind of leader who cancels a trip to New York Fashion Week to hunker down with the Mr Porter team in the days leading up to its widely anticipated launch.

The results show in her team. When they are in public, they show a stylish united front and in private they don’t backbite about each other. At work, they are professional and responsive, and show up when they say they will. If they are going to be late, they send an apology. They say thank you, and they care about the details too.

Net-a-Porter’s success is often attributed to its high quality content. But as the company builds new businesses, it is the seamless back-end operations which pick, pack and ship hundreds of thousands of fashion products and deliver them to 170 countries around the world that make a big difference. This has enabled the company to quickly launch two new businesses – The Outnet and Mr Porter –  in less than 24 months.

The lynchpin for all of this is the positive role model and force for innovation that Natalie represents in our industry. It’s no wonder that to many in the industry, she is now just ‘Natalie’ and that she has become a positive face for the fashion business to the rest of the business community and the wider world at a time when the industry has been tainted. Hers is an example we can all follow.

Imran Amed is founder and editor of The Business of Fashion

McQ video, posted on Vimeo, shared on Tumblr | Source: McQ

Why Fashion’s Top Brands Are Flocking to Tumblr (Mashable)
“According to Tumblr… approximately 180 of the top 1,000 Tumblr blogs are fashion-related. And fashion-related Tumblr posts are reblogged on a much greater scale than general Tumblr posts… suggesting that ‘there’s a huge capacity for fashion content to go viral on Tumblr.’”

Manish Arora Confirmed as Paco Rabanne Creative Director (Fashionologie)
“Manish Arora is the new creative director of Paco Rabanne, and will show his first collection for the label in October during Paris Fashion Week — for Spring 2012. He will also continue his colorful signature collection, which is also shown in Paris but sells mostly in his native India.”

Barneys’ New Chief Explains Those Changes (On the Runway)
“Mr. Lee stressed that his mission for the luxury retailer was to make it surprising and dynamic. ‘But,’ he added, ‘there’s never going to be a day when we say ‘ta-da’ and drop the curtain.’ The changes will be a work-in-progress over the next few years, he said.”

Arnault offers olive branch to Hermès (Reuters)
“Arnault struck a conciliatory note on Friday, arguing LVMH was best positioned to ensure the long-term survival of Hermès’ culture and business. ‘We can bring them a number of advantages both strategically and operationally without anything in return other than our presence as a shareholder.’”

Lunch with Natalie Massenet (FT)
“Net-a-Porter looks a lot like a glossy online fashion magazine but Mr Porter is largely black and white; more tabloid in tone; more vertically oriented; and features real men, role models who can also be style models, such as actor Steve McQueen and hotelier Andre Balazs, as well as lists of “essentials” every man needs.”

Fashion Crowdsourcing Panel at DLD (DLD Conference)
“The Fashion Panel was all about the use of crowdsourcing for fashion brands. Vanessa Friedman moderated the talk with Natalie Massenet from the online luxury fashion retailer Net-A-Porter, who shortly before won the Aenne Burda Award, the Creative Adviser of H&M, Margareta van den Bosch and Scott Galloway, Professor of Marketing at NYU. The main discussion focussed on whether the customers still want strong curators or prefer bringing in their own ideas and designs.”

Mad Men! Romancing the Suit (IHT)
“In tailored suits and noble coats, a whole new generation is finding an antidote to casual sportswear. It is as if the cast of ‘Mad Men,’ the cult television series based on a New York advertising office in the 1960s, had migrated to the men’s shows and been re-branded for the 21st century.”

Couture Isn’t So Dead, After All (Fashionologie)
“How many articles have been written heralding the imminent death of couture? But after Alexander McQueen reported that its custom order business is profitable last week, executives across the board seem optimistic about the state of couture.”

Prada Said to Decide on IPO (Bloomberg)
“Prada, the Italian fashion company that has scrapped initial public offerings four times in 11 years, may decide to proceed with an IPO by the end of the month… An announcement could follow as early as February.”

Berlin’s fashion scene struts into the future (The Local)
“Berlin is seen as the up and coming place for new designers, this is the second Fashion Week that we’ve been to and you can see that it’s progressed even since last year… Things are growing here from season to season.”

The BoF community looks on at Fashion Pioneers with Natalie Massenet | Photo: Lawrence Randall

LONDON, United Kingdom — It’s been quite the year for the BoF team. In January, we will celebrate our 4th birthday, having seen BoF grow from a passion project created from the sofa in my living room to a growing global community of like-minded fashion professionals that is BoF today.

We are grateful for all of the support our community has shown us over the past 12 months, from the success of our sold-out Fashion Pioneers series to the rapidly growing numbers of you who come to us every day for opinionated fashion business analysis and a highly-curated point of view on the day’s news. We now have over 150,000 followers on Twitter, 2,000 fans on Facebook and growing follower base on our new Tumblr page. We are honoured and grateful that so many of you take the time to engage and interact with us on a daily basis, in so many ways.

The international media has also been paying attention to the power and reach of our community, from the International Herald Tribune to Vogue Italia to The Evening Standard. Canada’s Macleans Magazine called BoF “The Economist of Fashion,” the Daily Telegraph included BoF in their round-up of “Britain’s Best Fashion Bloggers” and just this month British GQ gave us a little surprise for 2011 (check out number 92). What an honour and a great way to start the new year!

None of this would be possible without you, the global community of executives, designers, editors, students, academics, investors and supporters who have made BoF their daily must-read on the fashion business. We’re going to take a break over the holidays, but in the meantime here’s a look back to the articles and stories which fired up your interest and passions this past year. Thank you again for your continued support.

Happy holidays, happy new year, and see you in 2011!

1. In Tokyo, Abercrombie Misses Its Mark

Abercrombie & Fitch, Ginza | Source: Fashionsnap.com

When BoF’s W. David Marx filed his report on the new Abercrombie & Fitch store in Tokyo’s Ginza district earlier this year, calling the American fashion brand out for its culturally insensitive approach to international expansion, the fashion blogosphere lit up with conversation about the new store. Commenters on BoF joined in large numbers, describing their own experiences — positive and negative — at the brand’s Tokyo emporium and providing insider scoops on the brand’s bungled retail strategy in Japan.

2. BoF Exclusive | The New Creative Establishment 2010

The New Creative Establishment | Source: INDUSTRIE Magazine

Possibly the most controversial article of 2010 was our exclusive preview of The New Creative Establishment created by our friends at INDUSTRIE magazine. The preview rocketed to the top of our Most Read Articles list right away and has firmly held its position for more than a month. Lists like these always spark some kind of controversy, but the uproar about this one was heard in fashion quarters around the world, and indeed on all of the major fashion websites from Grazia Daily to Style.com. Who deserved to be on the list? Who didn’t? Who was missed? Are these kinds of lists constructive contributions to the fashion dialogue or just a way for a new magazine to get attention and flatter would-be collaborators? You decide.

3. Fashion 2.0 | What The Independent Article Didn’t Tell Us

Tavi Gevinson's Bow at Dior Couture | Source: Twitpic by SteffiSchuetze

Back in February when The Independent newspaper contacted several respected bloggers for comment on an article about the growing influence and questionable ethics of some fashion bloggers, BoF was more than happy to provide some thoughts. However, when the article was published quoting only editors from major magazines, we published our own article, to give the other side of the story.

4. Fashion 2.0 | Top 10 Fashion Films of the Season

Our twice-a-year rundowns of the top fashion films of the season continue to be very popular. Fred Butler’s Sunshowers film topped our ranking of fashion films in the Spring while Gareth Pugh’s tour de force film shown in Paris’ Bercy stadium grabbed the top spot in the Autumn ranking. If you have some time over the holiday break, sit back and enjoy these curated selections of fashion’s finest films.

5. BoF Exclusive | Zaldy Goco talks about designing for Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga

Michael Jackson by Zaldy | Source: Zaldy Goco

Michael Jackson’s untimely death right before he was about to kick off a 50 concert series in London shocked the world.  Not only did BoF get the global exclusive scoop from designer Zaldy Goco on the costumes he had designed for the King of Pop, but we also got his take on working with Lady Gaga, whose impact on fashion in 2010 was absolutely huge.

6. Fashion 2.0 | Suzy Menkes on the Growing Influence of Fashion Blogs

In early in 2010 Suzy Menkes issued a warning to bloggers about the risk of becoming mouthpieces for fashion brands, many of whom seem to be looking to manipulate bloggers into publishing what some consider to be nothing more than brand propaganda. Ever the pragmatist, Ms Menkes also realises that the growing impact and relevance of blogs and other social media is here to stay. She told Mary Scherpe of Stil in Berlin, “the world changed when fashion instead of being a monologue, became a conversation. And that’s never going to stop.”

7. Fashion 2.0 | The Fashionable Rise of Tumblr

Tumblr Screenshots | Source: Google Images

Tumblr is the latest social media platform to take the fashion industry by storm. Vikram Alexei Kansara’s round-up on the rise of fashion tumbling elicited a huge response amongst the Tumblr community and resulted in BoF being invited to become an editor on the official Tumblr fashion channel. BoF has also launched it’s own Tumblr to participate in this passionate community.

8. Fashion Pioneers | Jefferson Hack, Natalie Massenet and Nick Knight

Our series of in-depth, one-on-one interviews with fashion’s most inspiring pioneers have been extremely popular on BoF and have spread around the internet like wildfire. If you missed our interviews during the year, take the chance to listen to these pioneering fashion forces speak about the future of fashion:

Jefferson Hack on Fashion Media in The Era of Digital Beauty

Natalie Massenet Says to Create the Future, Follow the Consumer

Nick Knight Says Heart and Mind are the Key to Fashion Imagemaking

9. How Influential are the New Fashion Youth?

Much has been said about the increasing influence of young fashion bloggers, empowered with digital media and their own creativity. Indeed, today’s internet-empowered youth have the tools, access and information to create and promote their own fashion culture. Our exploration of the ‘new fashion youth’ demonstrated how this kind of online showcase may create opportunities for long-term careers in the fashion industry.

10. It’s Time Fashion Schools Got Down to Business

Thomas Tait’s Sketchbook | Source: Thomas Tait

Rounding out the top ten articles of the year on BoF was an opinion piece highlighting the lack of business training and preparation given to young fashion designers at fashion schools the world over. The article does not advocate upseting “the unique and delicate creative climates that have been carefully constructed at the world’s leading fashion colleges,” but “building some basic business training into the core fashion curriculum would be a very good thing indeed.”

Imran Amed is founder and editor of The Business of Fashion

In March, the business was acquired by Swiss luxury group Richemont at a total valuation of £350 million. In June, the company revealed the upcoming launch of Mr. Porter, a dedicated luxury menswear offering. And just a few weeks ago, Net-a-Porter, which was launched during the first internet boom, celebrated ten years in business.

At this pivotal moment in the company’s history, BoF editor-in-chief Imran Amed sat down with founder and chairman Natalie Massenet for the second installment of Fashion Pioneers, a series of intimate live conversations between Mr. Amed and the fashion industry’s most interesting operators, brought to you by The Business of Fashion.

Held at Net-a-Porter’s cavernous new headquarters on the top floor of London’s Westfield shopping centre, attended by key industry figures like Sarah Mower, Jonathan Saunders and Gareth Pugh, and streamed live to a global audience online, the evening was full of exciting revelations — including the world debut of Net-a-Porter’s new iPad application, which was specially expedited through Apple’s approval process just in time for the event — and was threaded together by a consistent and powerful theme: in today’s fast-evolving world, the path to meaningful innovation begins with the consumer. (RSS and email subscribers, please see the video of edited highlights here.)

But it’s important to remember that behind the tremendous success story of Net-a-Porter lies a personal story of entrepreneurship rooted in confidence and optimism. Indeed, Ms. Massenet opened the conversation with a reference to a book she read before starting Net-a-Porter. Titled Creative Visualization, the volume focuses on using the power of the imagination to realise goals.

On her own visualisation, Ms. Massenet, a former editor at WWD and Tatler, said: “Rather than imagining Net-a-Porter, I imagined that I would be involved in a media business. It was a big white space, with lots of light and lots of young people walking around, working, smiling.” But while Net-a-Porter is most often described as a luxury etailer, what Natalie Massenet has created could equally be described as a new kind of media business: a luxury fashion magazine that’s shopable. “I definitely think of myself as an editor,” said Ms. Massenet. “I think that a successful retailer thinks like an editor, certainly today when you can use the internet to shop, literally, off a page.”

But today, with the explosive growth of fashion blogging and social shopping platforms like Polyvore and ShopStyle, end consumers can become editors, stylists and a merchandisers themselves, creating looks for others to see and shop. Pressed on how the social media revolution has impacted Net-a-Porter, Ms. Massenet was unequivocal: “It drives our business.”

“There is a great egalitarianism going on online,” she continued. But Massenet clearly understands that in luxury fashion, selective socialising is the name of the game. Net-a-Porter currently operates an “invitation-only” affiliate program and works with around 430 bloggers and websites around the world who have been “hand-picked because they are relevant in the fashion industry,” she said. “We like the way they look, the way they talk, their professionalism. They drive traffic and they drive sales.”

Social media can also drive consumer insights and intelligence, said Ms. Massenet, relating the story of her accidental announcement of Net-a-Porter’s plans to launch The Outnet, a discount sales site, at a bloggers’ lunch a year ago. “The fact that we announced to the bloggers that we were going to create The Outnet created all this feedback that started coming in on the internet about what their expectations were about the new brand — and we listened,” she explained. “We actually used the feedback that was coming from our future consumers and future partners and built it into our own strategy.”

But the world of digital luxury is still a largely undefined territory. “I’m not sure that any of the rules have been written yet. There’s still room for people to improvise,” she emphasised. However, there may be a limit on how much luxury innovators can learn from other digital businesses. “I think it would have been very dangerous for us when we started Net-a-Porter to have looked at the online world, which was at that time Yahoo and Amazon, and said okay that’s the way we need to build a fashion business, because then it would have been full of blue underlines and lists and completely uninspiring visually,” she said.

Since the recent Richemont acquisition, industry observers have been watching for signs on how the transaction would impact the way Net-a-Porter operates. Specifically, there has been speculation on whether the Richemont deal might impact the site’s product mix. On this point Ms. Massenet was clear: “The message that I have shared with Johann Rupert, the owner of Richemont, is that Net-a-Porter has to remain independent,” she said. “The buying team buy what they like. We work very closely with the Gucci Group, with LVMH, with the Prada group. We are entirely independent.”

Turning to the future launch of Mr. Porter, the dedicated luxury menswear site tentatively due to launch in January 2011, Ms. Massenet emphasised that their strategy was based first and foremost on understanding the needs and wants of the consumer: “The women’s business is driven by trends and newness,” she said. “We believe what men really like is to look great — great style.”

“The service is going to be different, the brand is going to be different, the packaging is going to be different, the voice, the tone is going to be different,” she continued. “Why? Because we’re thinking about the customer.”

Having laser-focused insights that enable her to anticipate and answer the real needs and desires of today’s active, mobile and digitally-enabled luxury fashion consumers has been, without doubt, the most important secret to Natalie Massenet’s success as a true fashion pioneer. Indeed, when asked to interpret the personal significance of an Abraham Lincoln quote that’s permanently installed near her desk — “The best way to predict the future is to create it” — Ms. Massenet explained her key innovation strategy: “The most important thing, certainly today, is to follow the consumer. Technology and the consumer are changing so quickly.”

“Women are working, they are making their own money; by moving the store to the desk, we were able to create the future of shopping,” she said. But today, building a website is no longer enough. “The consumer is in the back of a cab, with her iPhone or her Blackberry, on her iPad, she’s tweeting an outfit that her friend is wearing and desperately trying to find out where she got her shoes online. Part of creating the future is to follow this consumer.”

This imperative gave rise to the new Net-a-Porter iPad application, a weekly shopable magazine which not only allows for a more mobile, decentralised shopping experience, but more closely integrates commerce and fashion content than ever before: “The dream was always to make a shopping magazine,” she said. “With the iPad you can actually merge the magazine experience with shopping.”

The new iPad app is only one of a staggering ten ongoing new technology workstreams currently underway at Net-a-Porter. Indeed, in the traditionally closed and hierarchical world of luxury fashion, Ms. Massenet’s “follow the consumer” mantra has rather profound and wide-reaching implications that stretch beyond the company she founded.

When asked about how to fix the dysfunctional fashion cycle that currently means stores are full of cashmere in the middle of the summer and shoppers have to wait 5-6 months to buy a piece of clothing they’ve seen in a streaming runway show, Ms. Massenet, again, puts herself in the mind of the consumer: “There can’t be anything more frustrating than being shown something really beautiful and wonderful that you want, particularly if it’s weather appropriate, and not being able to get it.”

Indeed, Ms. Massenet advocates realigning the fashion calendar to better suit consumers, re-imagining fashion shows as consumer-facing experiences — not insider industry events — that are in sync with what’s currently available in stores. In order to operationalise this sweeping idea, true to form, Ms. Massenet has a wonderfully clever and simply idea: “I don’t think we need to do anything more complicate than skip a season.”

Fashion Pioneers was filmed by Pundersons Gardens. Many thanks to our friends from the fashion blogosphere who live-streamed the event to a global audience. Plans for our next Fashion Pioneers talk are already underway. Stay tuned to BoF for further details.

A selection of images from the event, held at the Net-a-Porter headquarters in London.

The discussion touched on all the hot topics from the Net-a-Porter hive and beyond, including Mr Porter, the Richemont acquisition, bloggers vs. editors, the outdated fashion cycle, and more. But the undoubted highlight of the evening was the unveiling of the Net-a-Porter iPad application — a global BoF exclusive — via a 3 minute film screened to both livestream viewers and the live audience. As the announcement of the iPad application’s launch was made, a few enterprising audience members were already downloading the application, which had just been added to Apple’s iTunes store.

As for the BoF editorial team, we are still in reflective mode — there was a lot to take in from the rich discussion. So while we compile the edited highlights of the 60 minute conversation with Natalie (thank you for your patience!) and compose our thoughts on the key takeaways, we wanted to share an exclusive video which was screened at the beginning of the night’s festivities, providing a sneak peek behind-the-scenes to see exactly how Net-a-Porter works its magic, in the voice of its inspiring founder. (Email and RSS Subscribers, you can see the video here.)

We will be posting a video with the highlights of the interview next week, so stay tuned! And thanks again to our wonderful streaming partners who helped to make the event a global one, the amazing team at Net-a-Porter, and of course, Natalie Massenet.

Fashion Pioneers was brought to you exclusively by The Business of Fashion and was filmed by Pundersons Gardens

We have teamed up with fashion blogs and websites around the world to bring FASHION PIONEERS straight to your computer screens. A big thank you to our coalition of style blogs for streaming the interview with us:

United States: Tavi Gevinson | Fashionista.com | JC Report

United Kingdom: Style Bubble | Fashion156 | Style Salvage

France: A Shaded View on Fashion | Luxury Society

Germany: Les Mads

Spain: Kate Loves Me

We invite you all to tune in. And while you are watching, please send questions for Natalie Massenet to our Twitter account @_BoF_ using the hashtag #BoFLive

Fashion Pioneers is brought to you exclusively by The Business of Fashion and will be filmed by Pundersons Gardens

LONDON, United Kingdom — Any fashion follower who has been walking by a newsstand, flipping through a magazine or browsing the internet in the past few months is sure to have seen the huge interest in Natalie Massenet and her pioneering business, Net-a-Porter. From multi-page features in both British and American Vogue to a front page story in the Observer magazine to last week’s wall-to-wall coverage of Net-a-Porter’s 10th anniversary bash — attended by Victoria Beckham, Christopher Kane, Christopher Bailey — Net-a-Porter has been everywhere.

But, next week, only BoF will have the first in-depth live broadcast interview with Massenet since she sold the business to Richemont in April. Tickets for our second FASHION PIONEERS event sold out in four days, and a few more tickets we released were snapped up in only a few hours by those on the waiting list. Yesterday, we were in the new Net-a-Porter headquarters to see we could possibly squeeze anyone else in, but unfortunately, not even the cavernous Net-a-Porter offices can accommodate the interest in Ms. Massenet and her entrepreneurial success.

Thank goodness for livestreaming! With the support of a great BoF team, the talented film crew of Pundersons Gardens, the assistance of the impeccably professional team at Net-a-Porter, and our amazing friends from across the fashion blogosphere, the interview will be streamed live to reach people around the world. Confirmed livestreaming partners include:

United States: Tavi Gevinson | Fashionista.com | JC Report

United Kingdom: Style Bubble | Fashion156 | Style Salvage

France: A Shaded View on Fashion | Luxury Society

Germany: Les Mads

Spain: Kate Loves Me

We invite you all to tune in. And while you are watching, please send questions for Natalie Massenet to our Twitter account @_BoF_ using the hashtag #BoFLive

The livestream begins at 2.30pm New York | 7.30pm London | 8.30pm Paris and Berlin, on 22 July 2010.

Fashion Pioneers is brought to you exclusively by The Business of Fashion and will be filmed by Pundersons Gardens

Who will be part of The Online Fashion 100 in 2010?

LONDON, United Kingdom — Last year, the online fashion community in London was abuzz when Leon Bailey Green and London’s Independent newspaper co-published the ‘Online Fashion 100,’ a list of the most “Inspirational, Interesting, and Influential people in the Online Fashion Industry.”

Today, BoF has the exclusive scoop on a few of the names that will appear on this year’s list, due to be published on Monday alongside expert commentary from Hilary Alexander of The Daily Telegraph and Brent Hoberman of Lastminute.com fame.

So without further ado, here’s a sneak peek at the Online Fashion 100 for 2010.

It should be of no surprise that James Bilefield & Dylan Jones of Conde Nast Digital and GQ, Nick Knight of SHOWstudio, Nish Kukadia of SecretSales.com, and Simon Cowell & Sir Philip Green of Arcadia and Sony, have all made the cut.

One notable addition to the list this year is Johann Rupert, Chairman and principal shareholder of Richemont, who is on the list alongside our next BoF Fashion Pioneer, Natalie Massenet. She sold Net-a-Porter to the Swiss luxury goods group earlier this year for £350m. Indeed, investors like Mr. Rupert are included on the list for the first time, acknowledging the essential support that their capital provides to the development of the online fashion ecosystem.

That said, the Online Fashion 100 is more of an art than a science due to the subjective basis upon which it is created, a fact which Green says is a necessity.

“I really believe in keeping the list diverse and inclusive,” he explains. “The only way to maintain that is to keep it subjective with my choices, some of which were whittled down if unchosen by judges. These are people who I have watched — directly or indirectly— through their work over the past year, or have come to my attention after being mentioned by industry professionals I respect.”

The complete Online Fashion 100 will be published on Monday, 21 June 2010 on Leon Bailey Green and The Online Fashion Agency.

Natalie Massenet in her Net-a-Porter 'living room' 10 June 2010 | Source: BoF

LONDON, United Kingdom —”I’m more excited about this than anything we’ve ever done,” says Natalie Massenet about the new Mr Porter menswear shopping destination announced to the fashion world today in Women’s Wear Daily.

Just when some might have thought she was on cruise control after Richemont stepped in to acquire the majority of the Net-a-Porter business, fashion blogosphere, twittersphere and watercooler conversations were once again fixated on this remarkable woman who — lucky for us — is also our special guest for the next BoF Live Fashion Pioneers event which is already close to selling out only three days after it was announced.

As we settled into her ‘living room’ in the brand new Net-a-Porter headquarters to discuss Mr Porter — 10 years to the day since the launch of Net-a-Porter at 9pm on 10 June 2000 — bouquets of flowers were arriving from friends, colleagues and partners to congratulate Massenet on yet another big announcement.

But only BoF has the backstory on how the idea for Mr Porter was born, where the brand name came from, and who’ll be scouting the men’s shows with her this season to suss out the Spring/Summer 2011 collections.

Oh, and by the way it’s pronounced Mr Port-ER, not Mr Port-AY — a perfect masculine British riff on the feminine French Net-a-Porter. It’s no wonder that this backstory begins with a brand name.

On how they came up with Mr Porter…

“Mr Porter came to us from the boys at the Saturday Group. They sat us down and said: ‘We want a men’s Net-a-Porter….and we’ve got the brand for it.’ We weren’t going to do men’s for another two years, but we had this group of guys in front of us saying ‘Please we want this, and by the way here’s the brand.’

And then, when we met Mr Porter, we could see it, we could feel it. It immediately came to life..the graphics behind the brand, the packaging. In the same way that when we found the brand Net-a-Porter, it set the whole brand in place and the tone and what it had to be. They gave us the best gift.

On how they kept Mr Porter under wraps…

For sometime not even my husband knew about the name. Whilst The Board as a whole had discussed the business plan we had not revealed the name. We wanted to keep it under wraps because when we launched the OutNet, I very naively told an entire lunch full of bloggers, a year in advance, that we were going to do it. And while I was very happy to give them a scoop, it did all sorts of things in terms of putting pressure on us about what we had to deliver and it also alerted our competitors to what we were doing.

This time, we wanted to make sure the first people to find out about this were the brands. We’ve had one buyer quietly sitting beside my desk for the past few months. I think everyone thought she was part of the translation team, but she was quietly doing some buying appointments.

On the market opportunity…

We’ve spent the last ten years luring women away from shops and trying to make something that’s a better mousetrap for the consumer. But with men, they’ve already expressed the fact that they don’t like shopping as a concept. They don’t like to do it.

Typically — with the exception of some really great stores like Bergdorf Goodman, which has created a temple for a man — whether it’s on a website or in a physical store, the men’s shopping experience is marginalised or is a sub-category of the woman’s shopping. We’re going to change that.

On how men and women differ when it comes to shopping…

We’ve spent the last few months thinking about how men are going to want to shop and what makes them tick.

We are in no way going to say ‘here’s Net-a Porter, slide it over and put a different skin on it.’ We are starting from scratch: the navigation process, how and when and how frequently they are going to want to shop, what are their influences, inspirations and motivators for shopping, the service they are going to want and expect, what will make their lives easier. Everything.

On whether there will be a Mr Porter magazine…

We are a content and commerce business model. It’s a hybrid. So of course we are going to carry on with that, but the content is going to be what the male reader wants to read. You’re not going to see shopping off the runway. For us it’s about a global, edited, content-meets-commerce men’s style destination.

On the size ranges to be offered…

Yes, we’ll offer XS, but how about XXXL? Some of the most powerful, influential, fantastic, sexy men I know come in XXXL sizes. They are larger than life!

On who’s going to be at the men’s show’s this season to suss out the collections…

I’m going to the shows! I’m not going to Pitti, but will be in Milan with our menswear buyer and Erik Torstensson of Saturday who is joining me as consulting Creative Director for Mr. Porter. But, we’re also looking for feedback from customers on what brands they want to see on our Facebook page. It’s our way of crowdsourcing the buying process. We want everyone’s input.

Tickets for Fashion Pioneers with Natalie Massenet are selling like hotcakes. We’ll be discussing Mr. Porter, of course, but also the future of online fashion retail and publishing and the amazing story of the growth of Net-a-Porter. Get your tickets here now.

Editors note: This interview was updated on 8 May, 2011 to better reflect the context of the interview with Ms. Massenet