US – Condé Nast is moving into the realm of retail with the launch of its luxury e-commerce site.
Style.com represents a new editorial-retail hybrid in which style-inspiration transitions seamlessly into a tangible product. ‘In the past, reading about fashion was one activity and buying the items was something completely different. Today, readers want to buy at the moment they feel inspired,’ says Jonathan Newhouse, chairman and CEO at Condé Nast International.
The site is integrated with a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence, which tracks shoppers’ movements across the whole website. This enables Style.com to tailor each shopping experience accordingly by suggesting brands both on its site and on Condé Nast’s Vogue and GQ sites.
The new luxury fashion platform positions itself as a competitor to Net-A-Porter and includes items from the leading fashion houses Dolce & Gabbana, Raf Simons, Valentino and Christopher Kane.
As social commerce continues to blur the line between lifestyle aspirations and consumer spending, brands are responding with pioneering initiatives, such as the online magazine-cum-concept store Semaine, that amalgamate the two. For more information see our Social Commerce insight parts 1 and 2.