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.

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LONDON, United Kingdom — Mark your calendars. In her first live, in-depth interview after Swiss luxury goods group Richemont acquired the online fashion retailer she founded — valuing the business at a cool £350 million — The Business of Fashion is delighted to announce that Natalie Massenet, Founder and Executive Chairman of Net-a-Porter, will be our next Fashion Pioneer at a very special event on 22 July, 2010.

In a rare, one-on-one conversation to be streamed live on BoF from the brand new 44,000 square foot Net-a-Porter headquarters in West London, Massenet will discuss Net-a-Porter’s incredible success story — as the company marks its 10th anniversary — and reveal her vision for making Net-a-Porter a next generation digital luxury experience that brings commerce and content together in one platform: “a magazine for the 21st century,” she says. Indeed, as she recently told Industrie Magazine, “I think that the next five to 10 years are going to be even more significant for us than the last 10. We’re just getting started. And not just us: all e-commerce, internet, digital.”

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Francesco Trapani | Source: NY Times

Strategic changes at Bulgari – Francesco Trapani (Europa Star)
“In a watchmaking landscape that is seeing a shuffling of cards (economic crisis, the announcement by Nicolas Hayek that the Swatch Group is stopping distribution of component parts), what is Bulgari’s strategy?”

Two women, two businesses, one £450m British success story (Independent)
“One began by selling a few posh frocks in cyberspace. The other flogged retro crocks from a second-floor shop in west London… Natalie Massenet and Cath Kidston were yesterday united by cashing in… on their status as the originators of two of Britain’s most successful recession-busting brands.”

Lilly Pulitzer: Fashion With a Colorful Narrative (NY Times)
“Wes Anderson movies and J. D. Salinger novels both portray hyper-colorized worlds of civilized affluence. The characters are all a little too wonderful, attractive and brilliant to be believed… Let us take this feverish color palette and apply it to casual resort-wear.”

Property tax threatens UK retailers (Fashion United)
“A series of new property tax increases threatens to harm retailers’ ability to support the millions of jobs they provide. From the 1st of April several property tax hikes, such as business rates revaluation, come into effect.”

Toronto Fashion Week: A Fragmented Fall (Huffington Post)
“This season Toronto Fashion Week kicked off late, trailing behind a smattering of shows thrown independently by designers who didn’t need (nor want) the Fashion Design Council of Canada’s runway.”

Net-a-Porter screenshot | Source: Net-a-Porter

LONDON, United Kingdom — It’s official and finally confirmed. Net-a-Porter, the world’s pioneering and leading luxury ecommerce retailer has been acquired by Richemont, which was already the largest shareholder in Net-a-Porter prior to the announcement of the transaction this morning, valuing the business at a whopping £350m.

Natalie Massenet, Net-a-Porter’s Founder and Executive Chairman has long been a friend and supporter of BoF, so not only are we delighted that she and her founding team have deservedly cashed in on all their hard work over the past ten years, but also because, with the backing of Richemont, there is a chance that many of BoF’s dreams and ideas for Fashion 2.0 can now become a reality.

Natalie Massenet told The Business of Fashion this morning: “The timing is right for us. The company has reached a natural point where it is capable of enormous growth. We look forward to working with Richemont in this next chapter.”

And, perhaps this makes Richemont the biggest winner of all. Having recognised the potential of Net-a-Porter’s content-meets-commerce model early on, it now has the most powerful luxury fashion retailing platform at its disposal at a time when the entire retail model and operating system of the fashion industry is being redefined.  The potential synergies and opportunities are enormous, not to mention the access Richemont now has to the top minds in the luxury online retail space.

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LONDON, United Kingdom – When Natalie Massenet talks, people listen. It wasn’t always that way. When Massenet first proposed the idea of selling luxury products online in 1999, she faced more than a few doubters. Nobody doubts her now.

Frequently described as one of the most influential women in the fashion business, as Chairman and Founder of NET-A-PORTER, Massenet has built the pre-eminent online luxury destination, incorporating a clever commerce-meets-content approach that is squarely targeted at a woman that she always seems to have on her mind. It is this laser focus that has kept NET-A-PORTER at the top of its game, becoming the benchmark for luxury ecommerce retailers around the world.

In the first in a series of CEO Talks to understand how fashion entrepreneurs and business leaders are combating the economic downturn, we sat down with Natalie to get her views on the prospects for online luxury.

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