Net-a-Porter.com, one of Britain’s biggest internet success stories, defied economic gloom with a highly profitable year in 2008. Insiders said that sales at the upmarket fashion business in the year ending January 2009 rose by more than 50pc to around £85m. Margins also improved with a pre-tax profit rise in the region of 300pc to more than £9m.
A spokesman for the company, which is expected to reveal its results in May, declined to comment. Former Tatler journalist Natalie Massenet set up Net-a-Porter with an initial investment of £850,000 and is now considered one of the most influential women in the British fashion industry.