The most powerful woman in retail
You may not recognise her, but Alison Loehnis is a giant in fashion. Lisa Armstrong meets the woman in charge of e-tailer Net-a-porter
Last week in Milan, Alison Loehnis crowned her position as the most powerful retailer in the world with a party at a private mansion (with one of Milan’s largest gardens) to which every key player in the fashion world, from designers to CEOS, turned up.
Once, department stores wielded unrivalled influence, glamour and financial clout, but much of their hegemony has been eclipsed by e-tailers who in addition to all the above, bring a sense of unceasing energy and innovation to the table.
As president of Net-a-porter. com and Mrporter.com, it couldn’t have been easy slipping into the shoes of Dame Natalie Massenet, its charismatic and visionary founder, who left two years ago when the company merged with the YOOX group and came under the ultimate control of Federico Marchetti. Loehnis clearly decided on a low key, stealth approach. The way she dresses, though undeniably slick, is romantic and feminine. It’s a far cry from the Chanel suits worn by the mavens who ran department stores at their zenith, but also shows how much fashion has changed: even power brokers dress in a way that at least looks relaxed. Today she’s wearing wide, cropped khaki denim trousers from Mother, Gianvito Rossi sandals and a frilled stripy blouse from Rejina Pyo. Tomorrow she could be in a floral Alessandra Rich maxi, or silk pyjama pants and a Gucci preppy cardigan. She is a favourite among street style bloggers, which is not unimportant. You couldn’t head a business like Net if you had terrible style, however good your maths. Loehnis learned pretty much all you need to know about the art of a credible sales pitch when she was six. “They marketed my school uniform as blue and gold. But basically, it was blue and yellow,” she recalls ruefully. First lesson in life: don’t over-promise. Having joined the company 10 years ago, she has taken time to put her own stamp on the role, allowing numbers to do most of the talking. The YOOX Net-a-porter Group had revenues of more than €1 billion (£877 million) in the first half of 2017 and took 4.5 million orders (compared with 3.9 million in the first half of 2016). All this has elicited cooing from Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, while Women’s Wear Daily, an industry chronicler, described the company as showing every sign of being “Amazon-proof ”.
Loehnis presides over a company where more than half the top roles go to women from an enviably sleek office – even if it does overlook Shepherd’s Bush’s unlovely roundabout.
With soaring black bookshelves and an oral symposium of scented candles, it is a shock and awe work space, roughly the length of one of those walking galleries Elizabethans installed in their manors for when it rained. I ask Loehnis if she tracks her steps as she paces from her desk to the meeting table and back. No, she says, but she’d like to.
Most of the time she does this in heels.
Tanned, willowy, she has never abandoned that Manhattan gloss that’s her birthright, despite being married to an Old-etonian, having two young children, and living in London for 16 years. Her late mother, an advertising executive, adored clothes. She can still remember her own first purchase from Net-a-porter, before she went to work there – a black Chloe drop-waisted silk dress, which she still has.
Having studied art history at Brown, an Ivy League university, she didn’t intend to work in fashion, instead making a beeline for advertising because it combined commerce and creativity. Her first assignment was on General Meals cereal. “I ate so much cereal, I’ve barely touched it since.”
Much as she loves clothes, it’s selling that really motivates her. Still a student, she got a holiday job at Ralph Lauren. “They trained us brilliantly. You never came back from the stockroom emptyhanded. If you didn’t have the black velvet mules in a 38, you brought something else that was relevant. The satisfaction of finding the customer what they want, but also encouraging them to try on and buy things they didn’t know they wanted… getting them to leave with a smile on their face is such a buzz.”
The drive for innovation is relentless. Net has committed to using 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020. More than 50 per cent of its sales are via mobile phones and it works increasingly closely with Whatsapp to communicate directly with individual customers. Earlier this year, one of them spent €80,000 (£70,000) on a Panthere watch, which debuted on Net.
Exclusive launches and limited edition collaborations are crucial for generating excitement and sales. “Customers want speed. The hard core might buy their statement coats in July, but most want something they can wear now.” In the summer they were buying into pink. Now they’ve moved to purple and red.
Just as department stores used to take risks on new names, Net’s 37-strong team of buyers actively seeks recherché labels. Instagram is one resource to maintain its reputation as a fashion leader. “We found Staud, Attico, BOYY and The Volon there.” Identifying and in some instances creating new categories is another key strategy. When Loehnis visited New York earlier this year, she noticed fashion cognoscenti styling up beachwear to wear for evenings in town. So in May they introduced jet-a-porter, a dedicated holiday section that has helped the “vacationisation” of city wardrobes, now one of fashion’s biggest lifestyle shifts. Names such as Dodo Bar Or, Three Graces London and Lisa Marie Fernandez are new supernovas. Luxury, tailored denim and demifine jewellery – gold and silver at “accessible” prices – are two more. What with Net’s impressive figures and the fact that matchesfashion.com just sold for £800 million, I ask her why she thinks the world’s most respected, successful e-tailers are British. She cites risk taking, agility and a love of the new as critical factors. Certainly the creative influence of the big luxury e-tailers shouldn’t be underestimated, with designers focusing on merchandise that looks good on a tiny screen. But any strong point of view resonates. “The Row’s minimalism is flying,” says Loehnis. “So is Stella Mccartney. And Loewe [under British designer J.W. Anderson] is a power brand in the making.”
Keeping tabs on all this – plus Mr Porter, the men’s wing; Net-a-porter’s print magazine Porter and its weekly digital magazine; and answering to her new-ish boss, Federico Marchetti, who famously doesn’t suffer fools … I don’t understand how she looks so serene. Maybe that intersection of creativity and commerce creates an endorphin high.