'I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE you guys even care about my style,' says Natalie Massenet, the self-effacing founder of Net-a-porter.com, downplaying her obviously innate, easy elegance.
'I consider myself a behind-the-scenes sort of person and such attention is usually reserved for more flamboyant personalities. My time is spent thinking about how other women dress, not myself.'
Massenet's intuitive knowledge of the key looks from each season has made Net-a-porter one of the world's leading online boutiques: five-and-a-half million women a month log on to and buy from the award-winning site.
Sipping coffee in the boardroom of the spectacular circular space that makes up the Net-a-porter offices in west London, Massenet looks low-key but pulled together. She is wearing a delicate, breezy black dress with opaque tights and fantastically frivolous chunky Marni heels decorated with glass beads. 'I'm a big fan of quirky shoes. I find shoes entertaining because they're so temporary. You can indulge in a trend for a few months then move on to the next,' she says, glancing at her feet. 'And I'm loving the dress trend at the moment because it's so easy. You can just throw on some tights. I never want to think about what I wear.'
Massenet, 40, set up Net-a-porter in 2000. She was working as a fashion journalist and researching the new trend in online shopping when she became exasperated at the choices available. 'There was just nothing for a fashion-forward woman to buy,' she recalls. Massenet canvassed some designers and received a resolute 'No' to her suggestion that they make their clothes available to buy online. So she decided she'd do it herself and launched Net-a-porter from her kitchen table.
Three years ago sales topped GBP11 million (HK$170 million), and they've doubled every year since, with customers in more than 70 countries, from Denmark to Dubai, snapping up Burberry Prorsum dresses and Chloe wedges, and receiving their goods the next day. It's this gamble, founded on 'enthusiasm and blind faith', that won Natalie the British Fashion Award for Best Retailer in 2004.
What's her secret? 'I love fashion,' Massenet enthuses. 'And I think we at Net-a-porter have an emotional reaction to the products we see on the catwalks. That's what makes us pick a certain piece. It's a serious business based on emotion and passion and an adoration of fashion.'