A London-founded luxury fashion e-commerce company, started in 2000, selling designer clothing, shoes and accessories online, and owner of Mr Porter and The Outnet until recently.
Net-a-Porter is a luxury fashion website. It sells designer clothing, shoes, bags and accessories from many top fashion houses to customers around the world. It sits in a wider group that has included Mr Porter, a menswear site launched in 2011, and The Outnet, which sold past-season designer pieces at lower prices and which Wikipedia says was sold in April 2026. It is an early name in selling luxury fashion online.
Net-a-Porter was founded in 2000 by Natalie Massenet with her then-husband Arnaud Massenet, working from her flat in Chelsea, London. It joined with the Italian online retailer Yoox in 2015 to form YOOX Net-a-Porter Group. In April 2025 the group was bought by the luxury retailer Mytheresa, and its parent was renamed LuxExperience B.V. The sources we read give no mission or values statement, so we have not invented one. The nearest thing is a quote from a former Net-a-Porter president, Alison Loehnis, who described a 2014 sportswear section as being about "where fashion meets function".
The UK is where the company began, and Wikipedia says the group has logistics centres in the UK, alongside others in Italy, the US, China, Hong Kong and Japan. It also says Yoox operates 20 photo studios with 50 photographers in the UK and US. The sources we read did not name a London head-office address or give a current headcount. In September 2013, Net-a-Porter employed 2,600 people across the UK, US and Hong Kong, but that figure is more than a decade old.
We found little first-hand material about the working culture at the company. The one thing the record does show is that the company has been through plenty of change: new owners in 2010, 2015, 2018 and 2025, and a decision to leave the Chinese market in June 2024. For a student, that is a useful example of how a fast-moving digital business changes shape, and why checking the company's current setup before you apply is worthwhile.
A luxury online retailer employs a wide range of people. Fashion buyers and stylists choose which designers to feature, photographers and editors create the images and magazine-style content, marketing and customer-service staff look after clients, technology teams build the site and app, and logistics staff pack and send orders with special care. If you are interested in how luxury fashion meets technology, it gives a view of the whole chain from designer to doorstep.
Website: www.net-a-porter.com
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