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This article is part of The Luxury Slowdown Survival Guide, a collection of articles that examines the recent industry downturn and the strategies brands may employ to come out of it unscathed.
“Somebody has to run the office while you are all in Oslo, I guess!” Speaking via Zoom from Munich, Michael Kliger, CEO of Mytheresa, appears deeply chill for the person poised to emerge as the most powerful executive in global digital multi-brand retail. This year will mark Kliger’s 10-year anniversary in charge of the e-tailer. It will also — subject to regulatory approval — be when Mytheresa finalises its acquisition of Yoox Net-a-Porter from Richemont, creating a retail group with revenues of €3 billion.
Should that deal close as anticipated, it will represent an extraordinary achievement. With Farfetch and Matches having fallen so dramatically away, the acquisition of The Outnet, Yoox, Mr Porter and Net-a-Porter by a company that was not so long ago perceived as a mid-sized relative outlier in the field is testament to the rigour of Kliger’s management and the success of the philosophy Mytheresa applies. As he puts it: “Our industry is very much about dealing with fundamental human needs. The desire to look and be attractive, and to feel good. Look and feel is our business. And this is not shallow — it is about going deep into the emotional fabric of humans.”
Kliger has been left to run the office because much of his team, headed up on the ground by newly recruited chief customer experience officer Amber Pepper, is in Oslo. This trip is all about deepening the weave of Kliger’s “emotional fabric”. It is the final of approximately 50 physical activations that Mytheresa has held across the world this year, many of which are created with partner brands and most of which are exclusively for Mytheresa’s most very-very VICs: the top 3.7 per cent of its customers who between them generated 39.2 per cent of the company’s €913.6 million revenue in 2024.
This trip also includes two more categories of participants: press and influencers. Both had mingled with a cohort of around 40 clients drawn from across the world at a magnificent opening dinner in Oslo’s iceberg-inspired Opera House. Before we got to the cod with fondant potatoes and baked Alaska, however, there was an opening performance by Norwegian National Opera soprano Frøy Hovland Holtbakk. This proved breathtaking for two reasons: firstly, because her voice was beautiful, and secondly, because it was outside and the temperature was -4 degrees Celsius. Which was likely exactly as Mytheresa and its partner brand on this trip — Moncler Grenoble — had planned it, as Remo Ruffini, chairman and CEO of Moncler, told me a few days previously.
“We’ve been working with Mytheresa — a group that we really trust a lot — on this project for a few months. Grenoble is a very promising area for us to focus on within Moncler because it is the highest level of technicality we can make: the real outdoors and skiwear. And socially, habits are changing — more and more people want to spend time out of the city, and outside. Grenoble is a way for us to meet that new habit, and this project in Oslo is part of that,” he said.
As we watched the performance, it was notable that every client was wearing Moncler Grenoble (purchases), as was every influencer (samples), with many of the hottest garments selected from Mytheresa’s exclusive Autumn/Winter 2024 collection. Meanwhile, my British Vogue colleague Liam Hess, en route afterwards to Abu Dhabi, gamely shivered through it in a seersucker suit. As Liam recounted in his report, the hospitality did not end there: the next day was taken up with skiing and snowboarding before a leisurely fjord-view lunch.
Tiffany Hsu was on the trip as a first-time skier but long-term Mytheresa traveller: recruited to the company by Kliger in 2016 from Selfridges, she has been chief buying officer since last year. Before lunch, Hsu said: “My ethos of buying is really, how do I represent the brand and the designer to their essence… I always tell the team, even if we don’t think we can sell a lot of one piece, if it’s amazing and it says a lot about that brand essence, then it is something we should have.”
If that specificity about showcasing brand identity through buy is the warp of Kliger’s “emotional fabric”, then being equally focused on the specific needs of those VICs is the weft. Hsu continues: “We buy for a lifestyle. So understanding where they’re going — their holidays, their work trips, their engagements — allows us to cater to their social needs.” The nature of that client understanding is extremely precise, and is the responsibility of the Mytheresa personal shoppers to whom every client who reaches a certain (undisclosed) level of loyalty and investment is assigned. “If you buy for a client who goes to Mykonos a lot, it’s going to be different than for someone who goes to, say, Ibiza. That difference is very subtle — and it’s very important.”
Mytheresa has long been keen to communicate its commitment to offering its best clients its best possible level of service, a level of which this trip is a pinnacle example. Part and (yellow) parcel of that service, however, is its fiercely protective attitude of those clients — especially when journalists are on hand. Maybe it was the altitude, but on this trip we were able to persuade the company to allow Vogue Business to interview four clients — two women and one husband and wife duo — in order to hear first hand about their experiences. What follows has been edited for length and clarity, and because Mytheresa insisted that the clients should not be identified, names have been changed.
Personally, I have never liked shopping. But for me, fashion is something I need in order to socialise, to be appropriate in meetings and to conduct business. So when one of my closest friends recommended Mytheresa around 10 years ago, I tried it out; she said they had the nicest designers and the best selection. Everything I ordered was with me the next day, and I fell in love with it all. It was very comfortable and convenient, and very fast.
Then, I met Ilaria [her first Mytheresa personal shopper], and she was just the sweetest. I would tell her what I had coming up and what I wanted, and then after a while I would ask her to provide recommendations, too. She would make the best choices ever and they would always work — and they would always arrive the next day.
Over time, they [Mytheresa] have become like a part of my extended family — so have the DHL guys, I know them by heart! Mytheresa has been asking me for years to join them at one of these events, but I’ve never had the time to before. But after 10 years, I said: ‘OK, I have to go and meet them.’ Because this has been a long-term relationship, and it’s maybe even one of my best relationships.
These guys know me. I don’t have Instagram, I don’t look at fashion; I just need certain things for what I do and I ask them for what fits in my life. Even when I’m in Saint-Tropez, or London, or somewhere else it will always arrive: that yellow box! It works for me — and it’s much better than Net-a-Porter or Matches — they have the better selection and they have the nicest brands. What I also love is that they have some designers you don’t know from elsewhere.
So far on the trip I’ve been astonished. It’s a very nice location, everything has been made so nice for us, and I feel very special. And to meet everyone in person is a fun experience. I just met Pyotr [her current personal shopper] in person for the first time, and I’ve also met Ilaria [who has since been promoted within the Mytheresa business] — it’s been lovely. So now I will always come again, if I can find the time.
How many trips have I been on? I would have to count. The trip to Capri with Emilio Pucci was wonderful — I think that was my favourite event. And the trip with Rabanne in Spain at the Salvador Dali Museum was quite an experience, too.
I have met a lot of other clients on the trips. I cannot say we are friends, but we do keep in touch on Instagram. It’s the team from Mytheresa that have become friends. They build relationships. And this is very important, because nowadays you can buy anything everywhere. So to make you a loyal client, you need to feel special. This is why I recommended all my family and friends to shop with Mytheresa, and why a lot of them do.
I started shopping with them so long ago; it was the same with Net-a-Porter and Matches, too. These were the three platforms I used. But I have stayed with Mytheresa the longest because it is so comfortable to work with them in terms of ordering — the orders, returning or changing and any kind of communication. It is very quick, very exact and they are coming back to me very fast, solving all the problems that could happen. So I’ve only stuck with Mytheresa. When I was introduced to my personal shopper, it made my shopping even easier and more and more comfortable. It made it enjoyable. We communicate online through messages and calls, and she once even came to Spain to congratulate me with flowers before an event.
I like the selection there [at Mytheresa]. And I like that my shopper is sending me the list before the items go online so I can reserve pieces before they get to the platforms. Even then, if it doesn’t really suit me, I can just send it back.
Is there anything I wish Mytheresa could do that it doesn’t currently? Maybe there are a few brands I would like to be able to shop with them — Hermès is one — but really, I am extremely satisfied.
Michael: So I like fashion a lot, but I have no time to go shopping in Hamburg. I need something for when I’m in China, in Mexico, wherever — because of my work, I’m somewhere new every week. So we started with Mytheresa and we bought, we bought, we bought. And then, we received an invitation from Derek for him to become our personal shopper, and it’s the best. Nowadays, I just send pictures and I get everything the next day, and it’s amazing. And this is why we are here today.
Camila: I am a little bit different. I always liked to go to the shops, have a look, try things on. But now, with this service from Mytheresa, there is no need: Derek knows my taste, he knows what will work and he will never suggest I try something that is the latest thing in fashion if it’s not going to work for me — and he knows exactly what will work. So I don’t need to go to the shops any more. Because we have trust, and there is the convenience.
Michael: Saving time. For me, that is the point. Derek knows all my sizes in all the brands so if I want something I don’t have to drive into town and find a parking space and go looking. Plus, there is not everything in Hamburg, but there is everything in Mytheresa — and if there maybe isn’t, then they can get it. Why are we here now? Well I have 20 vacation days left before the end of the year, and we had the chance to come here together, so… and it is amazing. I love it.
Camila: I have been to Paris before with Derek, and also Gucci in Milano. But normally my husband doesn’t have the time, so this trip is very very special and we are very happy to be here.
Michael: Now I am shopping, my wife is shopping and our daughter who is 12 is shopping with Mytheresa, too — so it’s both generations in our house. She buys a lot of Polo Ralph Lauren and Moncler, and I’m not just saying that.
Back on the Zoom, Kliger sounds satisfied to hear about this latest tranche of customer feedback. He says: “One of our seven brand values is ‘Love our Customers’. And we very intentionally say ‘love’, which might sound strange for a company. But if you love someone, you will do anything for them, and that’s the relationship I want us to have with our clients.”
The customer loyalty that this love inspires appears to have insulated Mytheresa from the worst of the wider malaise currently affecting luxury. Asked whether he believes today’s flattening represents a correction or a more profound point of inflection, Kliger says: “I am definitely in the correction camp. We have come through a decade of unbelievable growth, so it feels harsh — and it is harsh — compared to the last two or three years. It’s a very sticky market. But I am in the camp that 12, 18 months down the road… We can already begin to see in the US how sentiments change and people start to come back. And we are tied to some of the financial aspects of the world, too, so Bitcoin [trading] over $100,000 has its impact, definitely on menswear.”
Should Kliger’s cautious forecast of a return to growth coincide with a successfully executed structuring and integration of Yoox Net-a-Porter into Mytheresa’s new ecosystem of digital retail storefronts, then there will be many more brand trips — and much more customer love — to come.
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