Alison Loehnis: Forging Fashion’s Digital Frontier

TRANSCRIPT

Alison Leohnis: So if you look at a bestselling bag, you’re going to see that bag probably in all the key cities on a certain kind of customer. However, the way it’s worn and the way it styles differs. It differs hugely, right? While people can say, “Oh, but you know, I really miss the days when not everything was globalized and there weren’t the same stores here.” The way in which fashion is interpreted, I think, really does vary all around the world and that’s what I find super exciting. I love looking at what people are wearing or how they’re wearing it.

Dan Rubinstein: Hi. I’m Dan Rubinstein and this is The Grand Tourist. I’ve been a design journalist for more than 20 years, and this is my personalized guided tour to the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food, and travel. All the elements of a well lived life. I might make podcasts about architecture and collecting and wax nostalgic about the golden age of magazines, but once upon a time, yours truly was a grunt in the early days of the dotcom bubble. We’re talking Y2K era. Years before the iPhone, much less YouTube or even Instagram. One of the reasons I made the switch to the realm of print is that things like art, design and especially fashion didn’t feel remotely compatible with the digital realm. The concept of buying a luxury product online, that was totally out of the question.

To watch the fashion industry over the years transform itself has been remarkable to behold. That’s why I’m so excited to talk to my guest today. Alison Leohnis, the Ad Interim CEO and President of the YOOX Net-a-Porter Group, better known for its two flagship eCommerce platforms, Net-a-Porter and its menswear sister or brother site, Mr. Porter. Alison is someone who’s been on the front lines of the digital transformation of the fashion industry, and she has terabytes of wisdom to share about how it all happened, how global tastes are shifting, how the pandemic changed things or didn’t, the struggles of creatives trying to work the so-called fashion system today and more. I caught up with the American-born, high-powered executive from her office in London to chat about how she got started in the business, the future of this crazy industry, and the lessons learned about a career in the digital trenches.

I read that you were born in New York, but I don’t really know much about your early life, and was fashion a big part of your being as a young child?

The short answer, indirectly, yes. And I say indirectly just because I didn’t grow up with anyone working in the fashion industry. I think from the age of six, my mom went back to work. She’d been a school teacher before my sister and I were born, and then she went back to work and she went into advertising, usually covering the beauty sector, beauty accounts on the account management side. And my dad worked in the fragrance business. So you could argue there was a little bit of fashion adjacent industries at play, but I think for me, my real introduction to fashion was through my mom who had just fantastic style and loved clothes, and I think really recognized the empowering nature of fashion and really had great style and also never really wanted to look exactly like anyone else. Was always in search of special pieces or things that were a little bit different and took me along with her to stores from the time that I was little.

So I think my initiation into fashion was at a now legendary, but long gone store named Charivari, which had opened on the Upper West Side and was really responsible … The family, I think they were called the Weiss family, who launched it, were responsible for not only discovering designers, but bringing a lot of amazing now European super brands to the US. I’d say my second, again, not direct but certainly important interaction with fashion came about through school because I went to a girls school with a very strict uniform. And that might sound counterintuitive, that that would then lead you to fashion, but for me, somehow accessorizing what I wear every day to make it a little bit different to what everyone else had became important, became a differentiator. And I think perhaps more importantly, any day that we didn’t have to be in uniform, so for a sports day, which we called field day and you could wear what you wanted to, I would lie awake at night dreaming about what I could wear.

And I think really what that was about is just I think being in such a strict environment, sartorial environment for school, fashion for me was always about creativity and self-expression and freedom. So that’s what I always really loved. And then my only, I guess, hands-on experience from a young age was my mom’s friend owned a little boutique and let me do … I’m going to really use these words loosely. Let me do visual merchandising, which basically meant like pinning something on a wall. But I felt very important and really enjoyed it and just loved the experience of being on the floor.

That’s amazing. Well, yeah, constraints give birth to all sorts of good creativity, whether it’s a budget or a uniform or whatever it is.

Although wouldn’t it be better to have a uniform than a budget?

That’s true.

If only.

And you studied art history at Brown and for those who are listening not from the States, it’s a great school, so you must’ve been a really good student in some way, right? I mean, you went to a good school that had the uniform and you went to Brown. You must have been a pretty good student.

Oh, thank you. I worked very hard. I was really focused and worked. Yeah. I worked hard.

What was that dream job for you as an art history student?

I would say that I came out of college super happy and sad. I’d say happy because I loved really all four years there. Sad because it was over. I’d like to say a bit enlightened, horizons expanded, et cetera. And uniquely pre-professional in that I’d had summer jobs, which I’ll come onto to shortly, but I really didn’t know a huge amount about the working world. Just what I had experienced through, again, summer jobs or through osmosis of visiting my parents at work essentially. I was always open to just trying things out and exploring and experimenting. I think in many ways that’s why also Brown really suited me because the curriculum’s open so you get to choose what you study.

So I cast the net out really wide. The one thing I knew when I began work other than the fact that I wanted and needed a job, was that I really wanted to find something that would marry business and creativity. So I looked at fashion, I looked at the Bloomingdale’s training program, I looked at the magazine world, et cetera. I think my dream job upon graduation was let me find something in the art world. And I always had these dreams of working at a gallery. And when I graduated, the market was incredibly soft. So I took a decision then that I would keep all things art related as a sort of extracurricular pastime and an interest, but that from a work perspective, I needed to explore other industries.

And I read somewhere that during one of your summers at Brown, you worked at a Ralph Lauren in the Hamptons. Is that true?

Yes.

What was that like?

The best. The best. I mean, yes. So full disclosure, it was my first summer. Was it my first? Yeah, it was my first summer after freshman year and I had heard through the grapevine that Ralph Lauren was opening. It was the first store in Hamptons, which was of some pretty significant importance to the brand or any brand opening up because it’s such an important market with all your New York customers and tourists, et cetera. And I raced at the first opportunity to try and meet someone and have an interview. I had many interviews for this job, despite it being a summer job. I was trained within an inch of my life on everything from, once again, VM, managing a stockroom, receiving, deliveries, how to handle the register. It was a country store, which is a concept that doesn’t exist anymore, but it was based on all this sort of really old school kind of American heritage pieces.

And as part of that, we didn’t want to have any kind of artificial material at the wrapping station. So no tape. So I involved managing a stockroom to wrapping presence without tape and twine, which I’d love to tell you I was really great at but that would be a lie. But what it really did … I mean my friends were working in law firms, they were working in investment banks and I was over the moon to be on the shop floor. And it taught me so much. I mean, it taught me a lot about customers, about what people respond to, what they don’t respond to, about the importance of detail, of service. And really what I would describe as, not to make it sound too grand, but sort of the theater of retail. And I remember the night before we opened and all the stock was behind the store in a … It was like in a parking space, right? Everything was all over the street and we’re getting ready and all of a sudden hours went by, everything went to place. And sure enough morning came and lights up and on we came to the stage and it was unbelievably exciting. Now, I was also a really late bloomer because I didn’t actually apply that to my day job for some years later, but I loved it.

And before joining the current company in 2007, you had a variety of jobs in advertising and in the digital world as well as brands like Thomas Pink. You also worked at a digital agency in those early internet days. What stands out to you about that time? And I worked digitally in the dawn of the internet before YouTube, before Google, before … The late ’90s.

Yeah. Same.

And if you were at all in the world of design or style or fashion or anything that those worlds did not really intertwine. But looking back now, especially in the crazy digital landscape that we have currently, what stands out in your mind about that time in your career?

It felt incredibly foreign in that I was working … I mean, listen, I’d come from Saatchi and Saatchi. I’d come from Hachette Filipacchi. I’d come from these big established corporations. I came from Disney. And I deliberately made the move because the internet bubble was expanding, expanding, almost about to burst literally at that moment. And I was a Luddite and I thought,”Well, hang on a second. This is going to be super important. I’m curious. I know nothing about this. Let’s try it. Let’s go into the place that’s not comfortable where some of your learnings could be applied.” But I really, I remember showing up in this office and it was a startup, but with cushion. Meaning it was a startup, but it was a well invested startup. So our office was a little sort of side pocket of an advertising agency. So we weren’t in someone’s garage, but we were sort of in the fire escape if you …

But I had no idea what anyone was talking about. I mean, literally it was if all these people were speaking a different language and everyone was senior to me and everyone was younger than me. And I remember thinking like,”Wow. I really have a lot to learn in so many areas.” It was a phenomenal experience though. My learning curve was super steep. I mean, our mission at the agency was really digital and e-comm strategy for lifestyle and entertainment companies. So I knew about brand, I knew about consumer, I knew about sales, but then using this whole new platform was really fascinating. And really that was the company that got me to London, which then got me to LVMH, which then got me to Net-a-Porter. So I’m forever grateful. But I just remember feeling really like a fish out of water.

And I think I talked a little bit before just about being a late bloomer. I mean, you hear so much these days from … I was just actually just up doing a fireside chat at my alma mater and just from students studying fashion and they’re like,” What if I don’t know what I want to do?” And I think it took me a long time to really figure out what I really wanted to do. And now people look at my CV and they’re like,”Oh my gosh, that’s so great. It’s so diverse. It’s …” But at the time, people I think just thought I was lost. Like, “Why is she bouncing around so much?” And I’ve just been very sort of gut driven and so that’s really responsible for it.

And those digital jobs, they were quite seen as risky, right? It was not a sure thing. Everything was kind of, you’re going to leave the safety of a very established industry to go into some crazy thing you couldn’t even explain to most people, right?

Yes. And I think they had respect and disdain simultaneously.

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Tell me about your first role in the company, because it seems like you joined at a really critical time when things were coming together. Can you, for people who have no concept at all, just describe when you joined and what was going on at the time?

Yes. I joined Net-a-Porter in 2007, and at the time, we were, let’s say, the better part of a hundred people. I mean, give me some room for error on that one, but give or take. Our HQ was, as it is today on the Net-a-Porter side anyway, in London. The business had been started seven years prior. So it felt like from an e-comm player perspective, it felt then quite established. With hindsight, I realize how small we were and how it was the most exciting time. I mean, the business was growing rapidly. I joined and it was a real combination of talent that had been in the business, a handful of people who had been there since the beginning. And then when I joined, I moved into a role that was vice president of sales and marketing that was created for me just as we started to really further build out the management team.

And in that role, I was responsible for all of the customer touchpoints. So creative, brand, PR, marketing, personal shopping, customer care. Actually it had been in operations, it then moved to me and then it moved later on back into operations. So it was a phenomenal experience and it really, from the earliest days, felt like home in so many ways. One, because I loved the business model, I loved what we were doing. Everyone shared this obsession with customer as well as with product. And it was really clear our goals were universally shared and super transparent and the growth was amazing. And it really became very quickly like work family, which it remained for years and years.

What was that landscape like at the time? Who was the big competition you guys were competing against? Or was it so early that you didn’t have one? Is that false? Because you were kind of-

There were always competitors. I mean then it was a lot of bricks and mortar. So like the US department stores, in terms of players at scale. At that point, there was a site that was owned by LVMH called eLuxury, which was in the … I think they were just about winding down. Boo.com had just imploded the year-

Oh gosh, yes. I remember Boo.com.

Yeah. The year that we launched actually. So the landscape was really different. So I think one of the main things is yes, in terms of were there lots of people out there in the selling luxury fashion? Absolutely. Were they selling it online? No. And so in my early years and in the earlier years of the company, there was a lot of business development involved. Just really knocking on doors of brands and explaining why selling to us was one, a complimentary exercise to their own retail efforts, but also why it was a good thing and what kind of customer we were bringing in.

And when I joined, we just had the one brand. It was Net-a-Porter. Several years after, we launched The Outnet, which is our discount business. And then in 2011 we launched Mr. Porter, which was really designed for the men in the Net-a-Porter woman’s life. And before you knew it, we went from one store to a group. And not just a group, but we also launched new categories. We launched beauty and grooming and sport. We opened up warehouses around the world. We opened in Hong Kong. We localized. We translated the sites. And in 2015, the business was merged with YOOX. And so first we became YOOX Net-a-Porter and then we were really four brands. So Net-a-Porter and Mr. Porter, which targets a really high value customer base offering an editorial voice to sell luxury fashion and style. And in the case of YOOX Anton, really the pioneers in off price fashion online.

And across the four stores, there’s tremendous reach. I mean we’re just over three and a half million active customers trading in 170 odd countries and a social media following of over eight million. So the reach is big. I mean, and what’s shared across all the businesses, despite their different targets or their different objectives, again, is this just never ending focus on the customer.

And during that big wave of growth in fashion and e-commerce, that really boom time from 10 years ago to now, what kind of lessons do you think you learned that maybe you see as more revelatory today? What are you being like, oh, there was something where really something clicked, a lesson learned that maybe helped bring you into the modern time?

Yeah. I’d say there’s a few things. One, staying on top of technology and evolution within technology. What I mean by that is everything from various platforms, apps to … There’s a lot out there that’s super interesting and there’s a lot out there that’s also quite gimmicky. And really the importance of what we really learned is just the importance of keeping the customer as your touchstone. Because it was very easy to get excited about new product, I say product from a tech perspective, as it launched, but then if it didn’t actually make your life as a customer easier, better, more interesting, create some fun, there’s really no reason for it to exist. And actually it’s why when we eventually launched our first app, we were adamant that you were able to transact, which I know sounds like completely unfathomable that would even be a discussion today.

But I remember going to all these mobile conferences and people would say,”Hey, there’s this cool app. And look, here’s a shoe and the thing and it can spin and you can make it red and yellow.” Okay. But you couldn’t buy it. And so actually we went to market with the first luxury fashion app that was where you could transact. And that was really, really important to us. I think it was one, and answer your question, really keeping the customer as a touchstone. I think also really following the customer lead in terms of how they want to communicate with you. I mean WhatsApp really has been a game changer, not just to all of us socially, but I think also in terms of how customers want to hear from you and being clear that it doesn’t mean that you abandon email or you get rid of all your other channels, but really investing where it’s going to matter most to the end user. And then also being patient with social media. I think in the early days a lot of businesses were sort of squeezing social for instant return and just understanding the power of engagement and the power of followings and that how ultimately you end up with a sort of influential shopping experience that isn’t always one click away, but also the impact that can have both positively and sometimes less positively.

Speaking of Mr. Porter, I remember when it first launched in those first couple of years when it was really mixing content and commerce in this really innovative way and people would constantly use it as one of the examples of digital fashion done right. And it was such a touchstone and it still is. What was that like? And when you guys were putting this together, did you feel like that content was really needed to connect with that guy or was it just kind of the mood at the moment? How have you seen that evolve, that rationale?

Yeah. I mean it’s crazy to think that was almost 14 years ago, but content was really been at the core of what we do and I appreciate it became very much a sort of zeitgeist development in the e-comm world or certainly in the retail world in recent years. But for us, we see it not as marketing. It’s really a service. So it’s explaining to you the customer how and giving you ideas and giving you inspiration. And what we found with our male customer, I’d say even more so somehow than with a female customer, is that he wants to … Instruction is probably not the right word.

Context.

But the how to wear and the context. I think for a very long time, our most popular YouTube video was how to tie a bow tie. So it was just like, show me how. Show me how, give me ideas. And then is it okay to … Can I … So it’s really taking the customer by the hand, so it was incredibly important to us. I think in the early days we launched with 80 brands. We have several hundred today. The way in which men shopped at the beginning was I’d say cautious. I remember seeing our first few orders because we have these screens that show the orders coming in around the offices. And the first few orders, you could tell men were just … Well, either men or competitors were testing us out because we sold a lot of socks initially. Let’s see if this thing works. Let’s just see how this is working. And then before you knew it, the orders increased.

And I think that really wanted to create, coming back to the content piece, a trusted environment where a guy could go and see his various need states addressed. So it’s like, okay, I’m a city guy. I am going to the country. What do I wear? What do I bring? I’m a country guy going to the city. I play sports. I do this, I do that. And really identifying themselves in some way, or at least something relatable that really helped them in their decision making process. And then again from a service perspective, making it really easy for them. In terms of product, let’s say 10 years ago, the customer, what he was buying into 10 years ago really was probably the high point of the sneaker zeitgeist product trend that was driving that. Then of course, that lasted a whole number of years. We know what happened during COVID and the shift into casual and sort of maybe more accessible functional pieces.

What we’re starting to see now on the men’s business and we started to see pretty early days following pandemic, was really this move back to investment pieces and luxury, particularly on the ready to wear side. But even when we look at shoes, yes, we still sell lots of sneakers, but men’s formal shoes,”hard shoes”, perform really, really well. But what was fascinating when we launched Mr. Porter was that even though we launched with 80 brands, which today feels small, when we went to market felt like quite a bit. And there were guys who were looking for what they already owned. And I remember talking to somebody. We were speaking with somebody who tested the site and said,”You guys don’t have anything.” And we’re like,”What do you mean we don’t have anything? We’ve got 80 brands. We’ve got ready wear, we’ve got shoes.” And he said,”Oh no, but you don’t have …” Blah blah. Which was a brand. And it was so interesting that his perspective was because we didn’t have blah blah, we had nothing. There was a bit of education to be done just in terms of introducing men to things they didn’t necessarily wear before, into newness and into this notion of curation.

Now you’ve got over what? How many hundreds of brands?

We’ve got several hundred brands now.

It’s an amazing array. Yeah. And your platform is an amazing opportunity for emerging brands to be noticed or be put in the same breath or the same page view as other more important, more established brands. Is there anyone you’ve worked with lately that you think we should be paying attention to? Who’s the hot tip that … Or two?

Yeah. There’s a number of newer brands that we’ve been working with that we’re very excited about. I’ll probably focus on women’s because otherwise we might be here for longer than you have. We have recently brought to market a number of newer brands, which we bannered new designers to know, and we actually celebrated them on an event in London last month. But they’re Veronica De Piante, Better, a brand called Sasuphi and Salon 1884. All female founded, all doing quite different things. Some a bit more traditional, some, such as Better, with really strong sustainability credentials, but from a product standpoint really differentiated from the rest of our assortment.

Liberowe has also been a fantastic success for us. They’re part of our 2024 Vanguard designer program and Vanguard is our new designers mentoring program. There is a brand that was introduced to me that I adore out of New York called Thank You Have a Good Day, which is great. They used to be based in Brooklyn. They’re now in Tribeca and just doing really interesting silhouettes out of both found and end of line material. Super, super cool. We actually just launched. We did a popup on Net-a-Porter with Jane Mayle and her brand Maison Mayle, which she had a store called Mayle, M-A-Y-L-E, on Elizabeth Street in the ’90s, which is a cult favorite. And then she closed that store and reemerged years later with her own atelier and I’ve known her for years. I’ve been a fan of the product for years. It sort of combines a ’40s and a ’70s aesthetic. Does really small production runs, really special. I’ll stop myself there. That’s not exhaustive, but that’s a smattering.

As someone sitting at the tippy top of an e-commerce empire, what’s selling today? If you’re at a dinner party and someone’s like,”What’s popular today?” What’s selling that’s surprising? What’s going on?

Gosh. Okay. Well, what’s selling and what’s selling that’s surprising might not … I might disappoint you on the surprising possibly, but-

That’s fine.

Let’s see. And I only say this because if you’re speaking to other people in the fashion space, it’s probably pretty consistent in that luxury is selling. Now, when I say luxury, it doesn’t necessarily mean the top five brands or the brand, but really products that are appealing to our most engaged customer are … We’re doing very well with bags really across a plethora of brands. All the big guys you can imagine. We’re also seeing players that are newer to the space, such as Toteme, who are selling bags incredibly well. They have this T-lock bag that really is a top performer and they have a bucket bag. Summertime raffia bags really dominated the way they was really first in that space. From a shoe perspective, I’ll start with women’s and then I’ll head to men’s. Ballerinas and loafers, which everyone’s seeing all over the place. Alaïa really owning ballerinas. And loafers, we’re seeing really across a number of brands, but really we can’t keep them in stock. We’re starting to see the customer … She’s getting dressed up. Dresses are really working for us.

That brings up something you said with Mr. Porter was my next question was how are people’s behaviors changing after the pandemic, and it sounds like people are becoming … They’re returning to some kind of formality or they’re trying to get dressed up more, even if it may not be for work. Is that the sense you’ve got?

Absolutely. I mean, we saw literally just after the last of the lockdowns ended our heels business on Net-a-Porter spiked. Which is not necessarily what you would imagine, because I think there was an argument for like, once you’ve gone flat, you’re not going back. That is not true. And so we really starting to see that. And when I look at the top designers and categories and stuff that’s selling, it doesn’t mean it’s all super, super dressy, but you would never say it’s particularly dressed down. And on men’s, it’s these higher ticket pieces. We’re selling coats and jackets like crazy, which is great. And tailoring is back, which is fantastic. I mean, I mentioned the hard shoes, which again, probably needs a rebrand because hard shoes doesn’t sound … It sounds a bit health and safety, but I think not sneakers-

Sounds orthopedic.

Not sneakers and not moccasins. More formal men’s shoes. So absolutely, and the end use varies. Yes, it’s for office, but we’re seeing tailoring being paired with jeans. So I think it’s almost like this marriage of pre and post pandemic style is coming together. So it’s, yes, maybe I’m a bit more casual, maybe I’m not in the office every single day, but actually I’m going back to the way I dressed and maybe I’m introducing some more casual elements, but I still have returned to my own sort of sartorial DNA.

Do you think over time, just because you’ve seen the data and you’ve been behind the scenes, do you think that women in say Paris and Milan or wherever, their styles over time are becoming more globalized and similar? Or are people still buying very different things and different colors in these sort of on one side of the pond or the other?

I love that question. It’s not a straightforward answer in that if you look at a bestselling bag from a universally known designer, you’re going to see that bag probably in all the key cities on a certain kind of customer. Okay. And okay, fine, maybe yellow sells here or red, but the fact of the matter is you’re going to see that bag so you won’t be shocked. However, the way it’s worn and the way it styles differs. It differs hugely, right? I spend a lot of time in Milan and the way in which I sort of see women’s style and put things together while riding their bike through the city is super different to what you would see in Paris, which is super different to what you would see. So while people can say,”Oh, I really miss the days when not everything was globalized and there weren’t the same stores here,” the way in which fashion is interpreted I think really does vary all around the world and that’s what I find super exciting. I love looking at what people are wearing or how they’re wearing it.

And you attend New York Fashion Week for a while and you’re a fixture there and sort of beyond the obvious of looking at what’s new and what’s being done, when you attend a show, what are you looking for in your position specifically? What are you trying to ascertain from what you’re seeing beyond just like, oh, that’s a nice piece or I like-

Yeah. I think one, it’s trends. Okay. And sometimes it’s not the obvious trends like it’s military, but it’s also just what are micro trends that we’re seeing. Like, huh, shorts are everywhere or huh, did you notice that from a styling perspective, it’s all about making this up, but it’s all about a footless tight and there’s something to this. So I think it’s trends headline, but it’s also micro trends. It really is this excitement. And there’s two things I would say. In terms of looking at collections, it’s a gap in the market. So gosh, we’ve always been looking for X and we haven’t seen it addressed in this way. And no one’s done a network collection that does this at that price point with that style. Amazing. We’re missing it. Our women wants it, our … Whatever. We need to pick it up.

And then sometimes it’s just that stuff where it’s like you fall in love and it’s a wow factor and there’s just thing where you’re like,”Whoa. I haven’t seen that. I can see how that will really, really resonate with our customer.” And then there’s also the online piece too, which is that, how is this going to come across visually? On Net-a-Porter, we have a very early adopting customer and she would love to get her hands on things first, loves runway. And so sometimes we’ll see pieces and we can sell pieces that in certain instances the brands don’t necessarily back hugely themselves because they’re like,”Well, the audience is kind of limited.” We’ve got the audience for it, but also we have this wonderful platform with which to sell it where color and silhouette can really pop.

And I think the main question is, what is this collection doing that’s different to anything else that either we’ve seen or that we sell to date? And how is it going to look alongside the other things? And also the litmus test is would you tell your friend to buy it? And if so, why? And so I think it’s always important before the buyers pick up a new brand to be able to say like,” Dan, I’ve picked up this shirt brand because no other brand is made of Sea Island cotton at price X and it comes in these colors. I’ve never seen anything like it and it looks great tucked or untucked and you can travel with it.” Boom. I mean, that’s not the sexiest description, but you take my point.

Yeah. And so what you’re saying is there are pieces that you think you can recognize and say that actually would sell really well online, maybe even better online than offline.

Yeah. And also there are going to be things that are maybe a little bit trickier. And that’s also where we’ll work with brands directly and say,”Listen, we think this …” Dah, dah, dah.”But have you thought about doing it this way? Because actually that might resonate a bit better.”

There’s been a lot of stories in the media, a lot of deep dives about the“fashion system” today and the business and how many young brands are struggling and how difficult things have become. If you could wave a magical wand industry-wide, not just obviously in your own world but industry-wide to make things a little bit better for brands like new brands to thrive and for fashion and sort of fashion with a capital F to thrive, what would you do to kind of-

Okay. This is one that we’ve heard before. It’s so important, however, which is really rethinking the cycle. Meaning buy now, wear now. And if you explain to anyone in any other industry that when it’s cold out you can’t buy coats or when it’s warm out, you can’t find a linen shirt because actually you would’ve bought it at mark down three weeks … It’s both the source and the byproduct of quite a bit of problems. I think attached to this mixed up or messed up or confusing seasonality is also this crazy pressure that’s put on designers just around the plethora of collections that they need to produce, which then creates all of this volume, which then creates all this inventory that then it blows every … And then you have this cycle and you have this glut of inventory.

And the fact is there’s a lot of stuff out there. A lot, a lot of stuff. And if we get to a place where actually we’re producing, magic word but the right amount at the right time of year for people to buy and we were selling and we didn’t have to have tons of stock that gets either stuck into landfill or going into deep promotion where everyone’s losing money, it I think would really, really create positively seismic change.

How so?

I think in terms of diversity in the workplace, one. I think in terms of representation in terms of models and how we’re seeing and how fashion is shown to us. I think sizing also remains an opportunity, shall we say. So I think it goes beyond that, but I think those three areas in particular.

You have a few kids that you’ve raised in London. Do you ever quiz them on … How old are your kids, if you don’t mind me asking?

Not at all. 16 and 17.

Okay. So they’re in the middle of exploring their own fashion sense of style. One girl, one boy or two girls?

Yep.

Okay. One girl, one boy. When it comes to things like style and that next generation, what are your perceptions of … What are they reacting to? Do they perceive fashion and style the same way that maybe you did growing up? Obviously they have much more greater access with the internet than our generation ever did.

Ever. I mean, so okay, in terms of question one, do I quiz them? Absolutely not. No. And we don’t talk about the fashion business over dinner. They’re very curious. It’s been absolutely fascinating to see their kind of style evolution. I’d say with teen boys and just observing teen boys on my travels and speaking to friends in other countries, there seems to be a similar-ish style trajectory in terms of when it goes from hoodie street to preppy and the age at which that switch is seems to be … I was just talking to a friend of mine in New York about this. She was like,”It’s really weird. My son, all of a sudden’s gotten really preppy. Do you think that’s because of the show on the Menendezes?” And I was like,”No.” I mean, no, no.

Girls is the reason, but-

I was like,”No, but I’ve seen it as well a few years before.” Anyway. I think it’s this awareness and I think it’s particularly, I’d say TikTok fueled and just this exposure to brands and style and just awareness. They just know so much. My daughter the other day pointed out this bag and she was like,”Oh, is that the Schiaparelli bag?” And I was like,”What?” Because believe me, I don’t talk about Schiaparelli. I mean I love Schiaparelli, don’t get me wrong, but Schiaparelli does not come up as a family topic, nor are her friends wearing Schiaparelli. Okay. So it’s just this idea. Yes. Just to clarify that point, importantly.

No, but it’s just this awareness just around … So on the one hand, I think with teenagers … I mean it was the same I guess when we were growing up too, for the most part that it’s like there is a uniform. You don’t really want to stand out up to a certain age. I remember having kids in the house, like my son’s friends and my daughter’s friends, and literally in one pile were a sea of white Air Force Ones and black Northface jackets belonging to boys. And that’s just like everyone was wearing the uniform. And I took a picture of it because I thought it was hilarious. And then they get a bit older and as you say, they start to find their style and like, well hold on. Thrifting is huge. And what I find fascinating is that their go-to quite often can be,”Actually no, no, no. Let me just go find that thrifted.” It doesn’t mean they don’t want new stuff, they do, but how thrifting is very much a thing. And of course they grew up with resale being under their nose. That whole generation. So they have no problem saying,”Oh, you know what? I want some new X. I’m just going to sell this and get another one from there.”

Are these generational shifts something that you guys talk about at work? Is it something like,”Oh, this new generation is really into thrifting and how do we adapt before 10 years from now or five years from now, they’re going to be in the workforce, they’re going to be buying, they’re going to be new generations coming in.” Do you try to anticipate these changes?

To a degree. I mean, I think your radar should be on high … Whatever. Dialed up in terms of being able to pick up-

Sensitivity.

Thank you. Thank you. In terms of really being clear on what this next generation of customer, what inspires them, what energizes them. I think being too knee-jerk is dangerous because I think it’s also remembering are they your customer today? Do you want them to be your customer today? Are you waiting for them later? What we are seeing with a younger customer is definitely a more values driven or considered purchasing, which is why provenance, sustainability, sustainable credentials, sustainability comes into mind. Tell me the story of a brand a bit more. We’re seeing that more and more. But just in terms of also how people are experiencing fashion, young people. And so really being clear, okay, well what role? And I think TikTok is really interesting just to see how brands are behaving on TikTok because I think certainly in the early days of TikTok it skewed a lot younger than it skews today, but it still skews relatively young. And just saying,”Okay. Well, is what I’m producing fit for this audience? Or am I just slapping a billboard in front of a different crowd?” Which I don’t think is particularly effective. And I think this need for … At the risk of using a much overused word, this real need for authenticity. I think these customers and these younger customers can smell you a mile away if you’re putting it on.

And what’s next for you?

Next for the business, our parent company, Richemont, has recently announced an agreement that YNAP is going to be acquired by Mytheresa, which is another leading multi-brand digital luxury business. That’s subject to all kinds of customary conditions. And while I can’t share much on that at the moment, it’s super exciting announcement and a new chapter that should bring really a lot of opportunity for the business overall. In the meantime, here at HQ, it’s business as usual, busy as ever. We’re gearing up next year for Net-a-Porter’s 25th anniversary, which really is an incredible milestone, not just to celebrate the achievement of the teams here and the amazing support from our customers and partners, but really also to reflect on how the online luxury experience has evolved over time, which I guess resonates very much with what you and I have been talking about. And on a personal note, really guiding and mentoring the teams across the business to achieve their full potential, to drive the performance and really to ensure that we remain an e-commerce leader in all that we do.

As my last question, as I ask other people, if you had to describe your sense of leadership style or who you are as a person in three words, which words did you choose?

All right. Warm, exacting, curious.

Thank you to my guest, Alison Leohnis, as well as to Beth Newman and everyone at YOOX Net-a-Porter Group for making this episode happen. The editor of The Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don’t forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, The Grand Tourist Curator at thegrandtourist.net. And follow me on Instagram, @danrubinstein. And don’t forget to follow The Grand Tourist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen and leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Til next time!

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