NET-A-PORTER review: is the luxury fashion site worth it?

NET-A-PORTER has been the benchmark for buying designer womenswear online since it launched in 2000, and the fundamentals still hold up: a tightly edited rail of labels you actually recognise, presentation that feels like a gift, and delivery that most luxury e-commerce still struggles to match. What it will not do is save you money, and it cannot let you feel the fabric through a screen.

Below is our assessment of what the site does well, where it frustrates, and the kind of shopper who gets the most out of it.

Strip away the editorials and it is a multi-brand online retailer: one basket, many labels, no physical shop. What separates it from a general fashion marketplace is the buying. The range is chosen rather than aggregated, so a search for a knitwear label returns a considered handful of pieces instead of every colourway ever made.

The core audience is a woman who already knows what she likes and can afford to buy it once, properly — the work coat, the wedding-guest dress, the bag she will carry for a decade. Alongside clothing there are shoes, bags, accessories, fine jewellery, watches and beauty, plus styling features and interviews published next to the shop rather than in a separate magazine.

Read the scores as a profile of what the site optimises for: certainty and presentation over price. If a low price per wear matters more to you than a guaranteed authentic piece arriving in two days, the numbers above tell you where to look instead.

Anyone can list a designer dress. The value here is that somebody has already done the filtering: the season's noteworthy coats sit next to the reliable basics, and the styling features show pieces worn together rather than photographed in isolation. That saves hours if you are shopping for an occasion, and it is the main reason people stay loyal after a first order.

Use the filters properly and the site becomes much faster. Filter by size first, then by colour and price, and the edit narrows to what will actually fit. The 'back in stock' alerts are worth setting on anything sold out in your size — popular pieces do return when orders are cancelled or stock is replenished.

Orders arrive in a sturdy black box with ribbon and tissue, and jewellery and watches come in their own cases. It is a small thing that matters more than it should: nothing arrives squashed, and a gift can be sent straight to the recipient without repacking.

Delivery is one of the site's stronger suits: dispatch is fast, tracking is clear, and express options are offered at checkout for most destinations. The variable is the destination itself. Prices, available speeds and whether taxes and duties are prepaid all change with the country you ship to, and the checkout total is the honest number to judge.

The obvious limitation is that you cannot try anything on. Sizing between designers is inconsistent, and a size 38 from one house is not a size 38 from another — which is exactly why the fit notes and model measurements on the product page matter so much. If you are between sizes or buying an unfamiliar label, order one size and be prepared to exchange rather than ordering three on a hunch.

The second is price discipline. Markdowns exist, but they are not the point of the site, and waiting rarely pays off on pieces that are genuinely wanted. The third is speed of refunds: returns are straightforward to arrange, but the money returns only once the item has been received and checked.

It suits the shopper buying a specific, considered piece: the coat for a winter of commuting, the dress for a wedding, the bag that will be used daily. It also suits anyone buying a gift for someone whose taste they know, because the packaging does half the work.

It suits you less if you enjoy the hunt through sales, if you need to try several sizes before deciding, or if you are shopping for a body shape the model photographs do not represent well. And if you are buying menswear, you are on the wrong site entirely.

• Check the model's height and size on every listing. It is the single most useful fit signal on the page.
• Buy your known size in familiar labels; size up in unfamiliar ones. Returns are easy but they cost you time.
• Set a back-in-stock alert on anything sold out in your size rather than settling for the wrong one.
• Shop the seasonal edits, not just the sale tab. The curated edits include the pieces the buying team expects to last.
• Order with enough runway. If you need a piece for a fixed date, leave room for a return and reorder.