Fashion Footprint

Natalie Lee, the general manager of Yoox Net-a-Porter for the Asia-Pacific region and Japan, discusses the key consumer trends in luxury fashion-and the dominance of quiet luxury

- Nafeesa Saini

Think of buying luxury fashion online and Yoox Net‑a‑Porter inevitably comes to mind. The e‑commerce retail group’s online stores are synonymous with not only some of the best high fashion names in the world, but also the emerging brands it incubates.

This success is thanks to e‑commerce leaders such as Natalie Lee, Yoox Net‑a‑Porter’s general manager for the Asia‑Pacific region and Japan, who joined the group in December 2021 and brings with her a wealth of experience in online retail. Lee started her career in the strategic planning team of Kolon FnC, one of the largest fashion companies in South Korea, before working for Yoox while studying for her master’s in business administration in New York, which she shares was her “pivotal moment to transition from bricks and mortar to e‑commerce”.

She found this transition relatively smooth, attributing it to e‑commerce’s data abundance and her hands‑on experience in offline stores. Since then, she has worked at various e‑commerce platforms, including Zalora in Southeast Asia and Coupang in South Korea. She also assumed a leadership position at Vestiaire Collective for the Asia‑Pacific region, before taking on the role of general manager for the same region at Yoox Net‑a‑Porter in 2021. Earlier this year, her responsibilities expanded to include Japan, and she now oversees business localisation and value creation across the regions.

Under Lee's leadership, Yoox Net-a-Porter has initiated several transformative that focus on bridging the digital and physical worlds.

"To compete with other [brands] with physical stores, we've been actively projects exploring the opportunities to engage with our most valuable customers physically by hosting various standalone event collaborations and exclusive style suites," she says.