natalie massenet; This Internet entrepreneur likes her style just like her online shopping-speedy and chic.(Interview)

Byline: Mark Holgate

Click, click, click-that's how quickly Natalie Massenet shops online. The 42-year-old L.A.-born, London-based founder of Net-a-porter dubs herself "the poster child for dot-com shopping." Her B&B Italia sofas, her Damien Hirst artwork, the Hermes beach towels she gives as gifts when she vacations with friends in the Greek Isles. . . . She has long believed in putting her money where her mouse is. Yet today the only click, click, click to be heard is from her black patent Christian Louboutin Bruges platform pumps hitting the sidewalks of London's Brompton Cross district. Massenet drove there in her eco-friendly Smart car from her neo-Georgian white stucco home near Hyde Park to seek out a few new pieces for her summer wardrobe.

And where better to look than Chanel? The French house is one of the few places where her shopping reality isn't limited to the virtual variety. (She is also addicted to scouring vintage stores, an experience she hasn't been able to replicate online.) Net-a-porter doesn't currently carry Chanel, though Massenet would like to. Her deep and abiding love for the label isn't just professional: To her, it is the perfect reflection of her own style-classically clean and elegant with enough quirky touches to keep it interesting. Massenet is also drawn to the rigor of the monochromatic Coco color palette, which not only suffuses her wardrobe (black jackets by Chanel, Chloe, and vintage Alaia, white shirts by McQueen, Gap, Ralph Lauren) but is also echoed in the coolly neutral brown-and-white decor of her abode.

Just don't mistake her for someone with an aversion to color and print. She has plenty in her closet (Anna Sui, TiBi, Paul & Joe) that has its time (vacation) and place (anywhere from Brittany, France, to Montego Bay, Jamaica). "Holidays are what I refer to as Petit Trianon time," says Massenet, laughing. "When you're playing at life, as opposed to working at life." She sees it like this: Dress in fashion shorthand. "If I am on vacation, give me a Pucci print that says 'holiday,'_" she explains. "And if it is a new season and it's about a short, full coat, fine; I will wear the coat with the clothes I already have. At the least the new piece says, 'I know what's going on.' "

Massenet owns a dozen of Chanel's archetypal cardigan jackets, but she is always in the market for another. "They represent how my look changes, and yet it doesn't," she says. Likewise, she adores the house's playful reorientation of iconic pieces, such as the spectator pumps that she recently bought, subverted by chain ankle straps and stiletto heels. But novelty has its place. Take her athletic J12 watch (she has two, switching from black to white when winter gives way to spring). Sprinkling the timepiece with diamonds is a no-no for her: "Sporty," she declares, "should be sporty." En route to the jackets, her eye is caught by a display of dark glasses. She religiously buys a new pair each year, either aviator-style or with a dramatically chunky frame. "I never know what to do with my hair, so I use the shades to hold it back," she says. "My friend [interior designer] Michael Smith calls them 'the surfer tiara.' "

Yet the last thing Massenet was expecting to buy today was a Chanel knit; in the past, they've never quite worked for her. But here she is, irresistibly drawn to a $1,760 shrunken black-and-ivory cashmere cardigan with a subtle shimmer. "I could wear it every day and every which way," Massenet says. "It would stay with me forever. The last time I saw Vera Wang, she told me she is trying to convince women that they ...