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Our guilty lunchtime habit Matchesfashion.com thinks it knows what the future of luxury shopping looks like and its asmuch about community and collaboration as cash transactions.JAMIE HUCKBODY enters 5 Carlos Place.

- Jamie Huckbody

There’s a revolution happening in Mayfair. Just down the road from Balenciaga and right opposite The Connaught hotel (where personal butlers are provided as part of the stealth-wealth service), it is a revolution that is unfolding discreetly, behind the polite facade of an Edwardian town house: No. 5 Carlos Place. The protagonist? Matchesfashion.com, the luxury retailer whose website alone attracts some 100 million visitors a year, from more than 170 countries, and which drives 95 per cent of all the company’s sales.

“We have always wanted to combine the very best of both physical and digital shopping experiences under one roof, and that’s exactly what we have achieved with 5 Carlos Place,” says Ulric Jerome, the Paris-born CEO of Matchesfashion.com, with more than a soupçon of pride. “And so, a year and a half ago we decided it was time to find a permanent home, a symbolic, well-located space where we could personally interact with our customers while offering the choice and convenience that comes with digital.”

Fast-forward some 18 months and fashion’s best kept secret is open for business: a seamless fusion of product (carefully edited from more than 450 designers/brands), digital content and smart tech with consumer events and broadcasting. “The door here is always open,” Jerome continues. “You walk into the space and you really feel like you’re at home. It’s beautiful. And the technology is not in your face.”