Hello, fashion elite; welcome to the web. A members-only website, Moda Operandi, is now letting well-to-do fashionistas buy from collections just hours after the clothes hit the catwalk during fashion week. Among the first design houses to show their pieces on the site are Alberta Ferretti, Nina Ricci, Giambattista Valli, Carolina Herrera and Alexander Wang.
Where high-fashion online clubs offer discounts to clear stock, Moda Operandi shows collections from designer trunk shows that are traditionally reserved for the industry elite. Members have 36 to 72 hours to view the pieces and order their selections, months before the items reach the stores.
Pieces are bought at full retail price with customers paying a 50 per cent deposit and the balance a few months later when the item is ready. The deposit gives designers the capital for raw material, while customers get the glow of having had the first look - and first wear. As for Moda Operandi, it makes its margin on buying wholesale and selling retail.
This 'pretail' model cuts consumers in on what was once a designer-vendor relationship. If you're a member, you get to pre-order what you want, in the size you want it, the same way fashion buyers do on a larger scale.
And in a world where Twitter, Flickr and YouTube has made everyone a citizen journalist, photographer and creator, it pushes fashion into the web 2.0 era.
'More and more customers are influencing what designers end up making, and our model is contributing to that, as we give designers very early indicators of what the end customer is interested in,' says chief executive and co-founder Aslaug Magnusdottir. 'Ninety-five per cent of what we sell is pre-ordered because we're coming in at a time when the brands are still in the market for product. We're showing customers collections that haven't been produced yet.'