Fashion Test Drive

When Net-a-Porter announced it planned to sell two styles from the Halston runway the day after the show, I thought it would be interesting to test drive the concept. After all, this was the first time, to my knowledge, that a look from a designer runway would be immediately available to consumers. The plan was for Net-a-Porter to have two shirt dress styles, in chocolate brown or teal blue, and a draped silk jersey shift with a low back. The Halston show was last Monday, and Net-a-Porter planned to go live with its sale within 24 hours of the show. I felt like Betty Crocker, testing a new concept.

Left, wool jersey Halston dress; right, Halston satin shirt dress. Both dresses were styled at Halston. (Evan Sung for The New York Times)

Not certain when the dresses would be posted on Tuesday, I started calling the Net-a-Porter order line at 8 a.m., in NYC, and was told by a British sales agent to check back later. Around 1 p.m., an agent told me the sale would start “imminently,” and I clicked to the site. Nothing. Finally, around 2:20 p.m., I noticed activity on the site. The sale had started. I clicked on the chocolate brown shirt dress, $1,495, and saw the smaller sizes were already sold out. Boy, that was fast. Using a friend’s credit card that was registered with Net-a-Porter, from a prior sale, I ordered the brown dress in size 44. This was a bit of a guess; I can be a size 40, 42 or 44, depending on the designer and the cut of the garment. My prime objective, though, was to get the dress—and get it delivered to the office the same day.

But my friend and I had trouble processing the order, after punching in the information twice, and a telephone call was made to Net-a-Porter to see what the trouble was. Meanwhile, I didn’t think we would be able to meet the 3 p.m. deadline for NYC same-day delivery. Indeed, as I learned later from Natalie Massenet, the founder and chief executive of Net-a-Porter, there was a massive deluge of calls and orders for the Halston dresses, and same-day delivery was supposed to be extended beyond the normal cut-off time. It didn’t happen for my order.

The dress arrived Wednesday afternoon at the office. The delay didn’t really bother me. What’s one day compared to waiting five or six months, as you normally would for a fall 2008 dress. But I was disappointed with the dress. Although Net-a-Porter had clearly described the dress as wool jersey, I had seen the style in the show—and it was in sleek silk satin and a warmer tone. Further, the dress didn’t seem to be worth $1,495. Unlike the thousands of women who logged into Net-a-Porter, I had had the advantage of seeing the collection in the studio and on the runway, and the clothes had seemed more substantial to me. I was also having trouble seeing what distinguished this wool jersey dress from another designer make, and, frankly, I had been seduced by the silk version on the runway. It looked cooler. Also, the dress didn’t fit—that was my fault. I should have gone for the 42—or, anyway, something smaller. I looked a little schlumpfy, if you know what I mean.

The Halston’s wool jersey dress that Ms. Horyn ordered, size 44, from Net-a-porter. (Evan Sung for The New York Times)

Was this a case of bait and switch? Was the wool jersey shirt dress part of the runway collection or was it a so-called commercial look done specially for Net-a-Porter’s Halston sale?

A day or so later, I learned that the wool jersey dress was supposed to be on the runway—it’s listed, in fact, on the run-of-show—but at the last minute Marco Zanini, the Halston designer, had pulled it and substituted the satin shirt-dress. Zanini told me yesterday that he had switched dresses because there was already a lot of wool jersey on the runway—one of the long, draw-string evening dresses is in the same fabric, as is a teal gown.

I also telephoned Bonnie Takhar, the chief executive of Halston, and shared my consumerist misgivings about the dress. She was concerned. She said the dress came from the same factory that had made the samples, so the quality should be identical. (Neither Takhar nor Massenet will say how large the initial Net-a-Porter was, but production and delivery of the garments from the factory took about 30 days, which Takhar said was normal.)

Anyway, I said to Takhar that, apart from the size, maybe the problem was the dress didn’t seem in the same stylish company as the other runway pieces, and not as flattering (to my eye) as the satin shirt dress. Obviously it would have helped if BOTH styles, the low-back draped shift and the jersey shirt dress, had been on the runway, given all the ballyhoo about the runway-to-consumer concept. Takhar agreed. She then offered to have my dress styled as it would have appeared on the runway.

Which Zanini did yesterday, using a size-44 model and pairing the dress with a sleeveless cashmere turtleneck and high suede boots. In Halston’s defense, it looked great—and better, I think, without the sash belt that comes with each dress. Net-a-Porter has sold out of the brown shirt dress, though it still has a size left in the teal, and Massenet told me last Friday that she had not heard any displeasure from customers.

The runway version of the satin Halston shirt dress. (Stephanie Colgan for The New York Times)

In the end, I think that the retail concept was successful, apart from the delays and overload at the Net-a-Porter site. Retail companies, in partnership with design houses, have to take risks. But though I had always planned to return the dress after the test drive, I wasn’t tempted to keep it. And I don’t think my mind would have been changed by having the proper size. I wanted to see more bang for my buck, and it wasn’t to be found with this particular garment. This is not to say the other Halston garments I saw aren’t up to snuff—they are, inside and out. But a style as basic as a shirt dress had better measure up in fabric, color and shape, all the components, if it’s going to hang as a luxury label—and meet a critical gaze.

Listen to an audio slide show of Cathy Horyn’s New York Fashion Week Review here.