In the picture

Most art is destined to hang in homes, and buying it online has only made it easier and quicker for Joe-public to become regular Peggy Guggenheims on a budget. But, it's safe to say a double-click on a shopping cart takes away the mystique of buying art … until now. One intriguing new online gallery has turned buying art online into an immersive experience.

East of Mayfair, a London-based online gallery that styles itself as a "digital art and design salon" aims to turn the tables on traditional shopping methods with a site designed as an artwork itself. Founder Janina Joffe, 25, started the gallery earlier this year after seeing a gap in the market. "I got tired of going to gallery spaces that decontextualise art from being something you have a direct personal relationship with in one sense and enforce a very specific context on them in another," says Joffe, an Oxford graduate.

The German, who has worked for foremost galleries such as Guggenheim, Haunch of Venison, said it was time for something "different".

"Art should be lived with and galleries are, after all, not museums, but places to buy things. On the site, you can see how things look in the context of a home and know exactly how much everything costs at a glance." Like all good ideas, it's a simple concept but one that until now hasn't been explored in the digital context.

The site is modelled on a fictive Huguenot townhouse that could be found in London's East End where users can explore rooms from the kitchen to the bathroom and art for sale via the site is hung on the walls. The site's "virtual house" has been designed by French illustrator Pierre Le-Tan. Joffe met Le-Tan after working with Joëlle Chariau of Galerie Bartsch & Chariau.

Joffe believes cost-conscious art-loving visitors to the site will prefer the breezy purchasing process over traditional galleries. "For me the clarity of prices on the site is a big appeal. It makes buying art less intimidating and allows you to choose within your budget without an awkward encounter with a sales person," says Joffe.

She says artists wishing to be represented online will also find it appealing. "For artists who want their work to be available to younger collectors and have it visible outside of specific exhibitions. The online presence is also useful because people looking for your work can find it from anywhere in the world."

Currently displayed in the virtual house are artists including Marcus Tremonto, CJ, Antonio Girbés, and architectural illustrator Thibaud Hérem. It's a testament to Joffe's growing clout that she also specialises in the works of renowned fashion illustrators - Gruau who famously drew Dior's creations, and Studio 54 stalwart Antonio Lopez. "He was so charismatic, unconventional and creative," says Joffe of Lopez.

Fashion illustration is certainly in vogue with major exhibitions on the art form happening in New York and a book on Lopez published recently by Rizzoli. In a world where celebrities and catwalk looks are constantly photographed and streamed to the general public via apps and blogs, is the general public still capable of appreciating the languid charms of fashion illustration? "Fashion art takes a step back and has a more creative and personal approach, depending on the artists eye and style. The artistic process translates the product into something subjective and part of the context of an era and its feeling." It's hard to argue against it.