How MyTheresa Is Winning over VICs

The luxury e-commerce landscape these days often provides less of a sense of discovery and more a sense of overwhelm, an often seemingly endless scroll in search of the “perfect” whatever you’re in search of. A failsafe tactic to cast as wide a net as possible in an effort to catch consumers? Not necessarily. Given the influence of globalization (shopping abroad has never been less thrilling), the merits of a unique and tightly edited selection have never been more appealing and few, if any, have mastered the game as well as German site Mytheresa.

Where other retailers may boast thousands of brands, Mytheresa’s curation includes roughly 250 brands for womenswear and 120 for menswear. Throw in a commitment to providing unique experiences for its most committed clientele (VICs) and a host of designer exclusives and you have a recipe for success (the e-tailer, for which profitability is up 4 percent, recently closed its acquisition of Yoox Net-a-Porter). And while the site’s biggest spenders account for a small percentage of overall users (4 percent), they are responsible for 40 percent of sales. I caught up with one of them, Catherine Schmidt, who, along with her husband Max, recently joined Mytheresa on a trip to Naples for a closer look at Kiton.

Schmidt joined me via Zoom, from her expansive dressing room which she designed herself (the couple runs a construction business), for a download about the trip and what distinguishes the Mytheresa experience. “I’ve been a Mytheresa customer since around 2022, after having stumbled across it randomly,” Schmidt tells Robb Report. Schmidt, who is based in a Chicago suburb, took such a shine to the site that she was assigned a personal shopper, Tiffany, which allows her early access to items. While Schmidt and her husband “who gets custom tailoring done everywhere from Chicago to Hong Kong” clearly enjoy fashion, as business owners they are pressed for time, so the service has proven to be invaluable.

While Max appreciates a great look, for Catherine, it all begins with the fabric and the couple has purchased several pieces from Kiton over the years. “But when you get to see how it’s made, the actual workmanship, and the hours and the labor that goes into it, it gives you a completely different appreciation,” says Schmidt of the post-runway show cocktail at Naples’s Museo Civico Filangieri, which featured Kiton artisans showcasing their tailoring prowess. For a more casual outing and the full Neapolitan experience, the Schmidts joined a handful of other VICs, models and influencers including Richard Biedul and Johannes Huebl for a pizza making class at the famed pizzeria Concettina ai Tre Santi. “I now shop almost exclusively at Mytheresa,” says Schmidt, who has shopped just about everywhere. “But between the incentives and the phenomenal buyers, I want to shop here as much as I can.”