Natalie Massenet

Natalie Massenet transformed and changed the world of luxury shopping by bringing it to the world. This was truly recognised when she was made an MBE in 2009. 

In June 2010 Net-A-Porter celebrated its 10th anniversary and soon after sold for £350 million to Richemont.

Natalie Massenet, born in 1966 was destinied to be a big name in the world of fashion with her parents a Californian journalist and a British Chanel model. She spent her childhood in LA with her father where he scraped and saved to send her to a private school. She described being surrounded by very wealthy people as giving her the drive and determination to work hard and therefore be successful. 

She is perhaps not the conventional woman, describing herself as 'lazy' saying she cuts her own fringe as she doesn't have time to go to a hairdresser.

Women's wear daily in LA was wear her career began.She then progressed to working as Isabella Blow's assistant at Tatler when she was 33. It was here that she came up with the whole idea of Net-A-Porter. 

I would describe Massenet as a risk taker having raised £1.2 million with her husband in start up investments for a company that advisers were all forecasting would fail. 

The site started in a Chelsea flat filled with stock and iconic black boxes with a team of 15. In 2001 Roland Mouret was convinced to sell his first collection on the site. In 2004 the site first became profitable and Net-A-Porter won an award for best shop at the British fashion awards.

2,000,000 people log onto the site every week with an average spend of £500. Purchases are shown in the West london offices on giant screens which flash up the latest purchases (how much was spent and what was bought) from around the world. 

In June 2010 when the company celebrated its tenth anniversary Natalie Massenet revealed her idea to begin working with menswear with the launch of 'Mr Porter'. The British fashion council named her the chairman in September 2012.

Consumer profile for perfume brand

Today, looking further into our new fragrance brand we have created a consumer profile.

Name: Ed

Age: 23

Likes: Going out with friends, smoking, going to gigs, films, drinking, playing and making music, visiting art galleries

Job: Intern at a graphic design company

Listens to: The who, the jam, the clash, blur, oasis, pulp (old Brit music) Also J villa, Alt-J etc

Watches: This is England, Trainspotting, Drive, Clockwork Orange

Shops at: Cow Vintage, charity shops, ebay, ASOS marketplace, All Saints, Urban Outfitters, Supreme

Goes to: Bodega, Brickworks, Lacehouse, Market bar, Spankys, Stealth

Drinks: Jack Daniels, beer

Other info: Small meaningful artistic tattoo, tragus piercing, single, messy/unkept hair, stubble-no beard,  6"2, no glasses, flat with friends -> mixture of girls and boys 

I like: Chanel nail varnish

Chanel nail varnish

Retailing at £18 they are quite a bit more expensive than the average nail varnish but not excessively in my eyes considering you are buying from Chanel. I received the 'nail colour 583 Taboo' recently for my birthday and completely love it. Unlike other nail varnishes it did not smudge straight after painting them or chip the day after I had painted. I therefore believe it is worth paying more of a premium price as the product is certainly worth it.

Initial research - in Nottingham

Nottingham Research Day

Lush

The woman in the Lush shop was able to give us a lot of information about their fragrances which previously I did not even know existed - such as the fact that Lush scents are worked on by the Lush owner and his son. 

The packaging was something I really thought had been well done as it took away the serious side to Lush with the cartoonised boxes for the different perfumes. 

Lush is a much more innovative brand than I initially realised, instead of having a press launch or party they opened a perfume gallery in London in which each room was scented differently to showcase the new range. They also released a bath bomb called 'breath of god' which has inhale and exhale on which both contain different scents to relax the body.

The most popular product for men is a scent called 'dirty' which is a spray (like cleaning product) bottle and so although it is a unisex product, appeals much more to men. A lot of the products collaborate with other products to fill a whole range. An example of this is the dirty range where there is spearmint soap, springwash shower gel, toothpaste and sandalwood shaving cream. The idea is that when layered together the smell is 'dirty'. The range had the slogan 'don't be dirty, be clean'.

This image shows the Gorilla perfume which is different to all of the other perfumes. It is called Gorilla as it is to do with warfare and being against status quo. The perfume has simple, black and plain packaging which is more like the usual Lush products. 

 Zara

In Zara I found the packaging quite cheap looking. It is a cheap product with perfumes ranging around £14.99ish and so you would not expect the same look as a premium product but I don't feel it has been done very well. 

Crabtree and Evelyn

Interesting idea for a continuation of the scent into a range - bringing vintage up to date with a new product. They have re-released shaving soap but in a wooden box so retaining the vintage feel of the product. 

Kiehls

Kiehl's started as a pharmacy in 1851 making naturally derived, fragrance free products. It was the first company in the whole beauty industry to have a full men's range. They have since branched out further with a dog and horse range in America.

All their fragrances are unisex with the fig leaf & sage being most popular with men. Original musk is a scent which is a recreation of a perfume found in the basement of the original store in the 1920s.

L'Occitane

Here we mainly focused on the VM and the way in which the product was presented. We found that glass generally made it look like a cheaper product - with ceramic instantly making it more appealable. 

I liked the way they presented ranges with key words that sum up the product, an example is in the image below. Verdon eau de toilette - exhilarating, modern and fresh. 

Aveda

Products packaging focused on a woody theme with natural looking recycled elements. The men's care range is called 'pure-formance' which hints at a natural range reflecting on a need for good products. 

They clearly care a lot about the ingredients used in their products with a book called the 'buriti book' entirely dedicated about an ingredient in the oils, with the book being the actual size of a 'buriti'.