At the risk of stating the obvious, I’ll start this post by saying that the past decade have seen the way we shop undergo some seriously major changes. I’d even go so far as to say that the rise of online shopping will, in the years to come, be regarded as a retail game changer on par with the opening of the first Department stores during the 19th century or the launch of Ready-to-Wear in the 1950s. But aside from enabling anyone with a credit card and an intenet connection to snap up the latest designer goodies at the click of a button, sites like Matches and Net-a-Porter are facilitating another dramatic development that I suspect will become all the more noticeable this year. Once upon a time, let’s say around the year 2000, you’d see a frock you liked in a fashion magazine and then go to the shop to try it on before either buying it, buying something else or leaving empty handed having wasted 2 or 3 hours. I’m sure you’ll agree, that’s not usually the case anymore. Editorial content (i.e seasonal trend edits, “top 10 party dress” features etc) is no longer just to be found in fashion magazines. Nowadays every online emporium from ASOS to Luxuup offer tips on what’s hot complete with direct links to buy the recommended products without so much as leaving your sofa. But the impact of these retail/editorial overlaps goes further than just cutting down the hours you spend on Bond Street. Last year saw the likes of Harpers Bazaar Editors Lucy Yeomans and Carmen Bornogovo leave to take up positions at Net-a-Porter and My-Wardrobe and I don’t doubt for a second that more fash eds will swap publishing for retail during the months to come. As much as I love more curling up in bed with a fresh copy of Vogue and a cuppa, if I want to brush up on the latest trends I head straight for Style.com. The equally instantaneous natures of digital media and online shopping make combining the two a no brainer and from this premise, Atelier-To-Go was born.
Let’s be honest, fashion e-tailers aren’t exactly few and far between. Given the vast number of successful (and not so successful) designer shopping sites around anyone who launches one is a far braver woman than me. So when I heard about the launch of another online boutique my immediate response was “yawn”. But then I learnt a bit more about Atelier-To-Go and swiftly changed my tune. Rather than launching an an e-tailer and then introducing editorial content (which, FYI, I’m not knocking) the fusion of smart fashion features and nice-stuff-you-can-buy is the very foundation of Atelier-To-Go.
Each season Atelier-To-Go’s team of expert editors and stylists will pick their top 5 themes/trends/fashion inspirations and create editorial features based on them using the best collections from the extremely tighly curated selection of mid-high end designers (think Carven, Alice + Olivia, Markus Lupfer and Iro) stocked on the site. This is then presented as a online magazine that the customer can shop directly from each shot. It’s not rocket science I’ll admit, but the marrying of super curated stock with snazzy looking shoots is so simple-yet-effective that I seriously wonder why no one’s thought of it before. Of course, that’s not to say if they had it would be as covetable as Atelier-To-Go’s sartorial offering which, in my opinion, are pure fashion gold. Aside from the gorge editorials and ultra covetable clothes, one thing that really struck me about the site was the way it managed to be personal without verging into cheesy/forced territory. Oh and they also offer personal styling, online shopping organisation and best of all, “special treats”
And to be clear this isn’t a sponsored post, I just think this site is brilliant.
Love Ella. X
