Eyes on the future

LONDON — Even in gray London, L.A. native Natalie Massenet has managed to carve out a bit of sunlight for her Net-a-Porter .com offices -- tucking them under the striking glass dome of Whiteley's shopping center. There is something poetic about this online fashion queen having her offices in a bricks-and-mortar retail relic named after William Whiteley, who opened one of London's first department stores here in 1863.

He was as much a visionary in his day as Massenet is in hers. The former fashion editor has been challenging the rules of retail since she launched her website in June 2000, starting with convincing fashion brands that the Internet was about more than discounting, and that $1,500 handbags really would sell online.

Massenet did this and more, bringing 200 brands to her online store, alongside top 10 lists and runway reports with an editorial point of view. She distinguished her site from then-competitors Boo.com and ShoppingTheWorld by focusing on packaging and customer service, with same-day delivery available in London and New York.

Beyond creating just one impressive site, she reinvented the way we shop. Massenet paved the way for luxury online, and now all designers have e-tail sites, including Marni, Yves Saint Laurent and Stella McCartney. Following her lead, department store sites evolved into mini-magazines with trend reports and blog posts. She also proved to shoppers that buying clothing online could be easy.

At Net-a-Porter, each garment has notes about size and fit, including exact measurements of sleeve and hem lengths, a practice other stores are replicating.

Now, Massenet is on the cusp of the next retail leap: collapsing the six-month runway-to-rack cycle to just hours.

"Natalie is the one who officially made Web shopping chic," says handbag designer Anya Hindmarch, an early recruit to the site. "She succeeded where others didn't see it through. She buys with utter conviction, knows her customer and is a savvy marketer."

Although Massenet is a front-row fixture at the runway shows, she's less a fashion creature of the editor-in-chief variety than she is a businesswoman. She is quiet, firm and generally dresses in more conservative pieces. But they are the most chic conservative pieces you've ever seen.

Net-a-Porter was started with $1 million, and after eight years, business is booming. In 2006, the site had revenues of $73.9 million. Los Angeles is the second biggest market in the U.S. because it's "paparazzi-free shopping," Massenet says, and it has some of the largest single orders, including one for $40,000.