99 Labels portal

Pining for a Versace gown? Only if it wasn’t for the killer price tag of a couple of lakhs, that is. Fret not. It can be yours for about Rs 1 lakh. Then again, a crisp Hugo Boss shirt (men, this is for you) — that might set you back by Rs 12,000 at a Boss store — comes to you at a bargain price of around Rs 6,000.

A slew of fashion portals are just what you were looking for as they give you the chance of jumping onto the bandwagon of online luxury shopping. Go portal-hopping and check out portals like Fashionandyou, Brandmile, Desicouture, 99labels, Ladybug and what have you. And here’s the best part: snap up fantastic deals (real knock-down prices) on the best luxury labels from across the globe as well as Indian designer labels.

The Brandmile luxury portal offers the crème de la crème of brands like Adams outfits and (above) Luella Bartley purses

The deals can translate into hefty discounts of 30 per cent to 80 per cent on anything from haute watches and shoes to trendy dresses and perfumes. And it’s not surprising that the popularity of the portals is shooting up by the day which is perhaps why Fashionandyou has a 2,000-strong membership.

“There is something new on the table every week. So, getting on to a portal is never boring,” promises Ishita Swarup, CEO of 99 Labels (www.99labels.com) that she launched in December last year in partnership with Anchal Jain and Ankur Prakash, co-founders of the lifestyle brand, NUN.

You are free to register yourself at most of the portals like Ladybug and Desicouture. But some are by invitation only which means that you must be invited to join up by an existing member. Says Nilesh Saxena, the Delhi-based director of the luxury portal, Brandmile that’s based on membership by invitation: “We want to keep the membership select.” Like Brandmile, 99 Labels and Fashionandyou also work on similar lines.

The portals source the products directly from the brands or international merchandisers. Says Pearl Uppal, CEO, Fashionandyou (www.fashionandyou.com): “The brands don’t have to invest in shops and yet reach a larger audience. Though our profit margins are slim, we hope to break even soon.” And of course it’s a win-win situation for the customer.

Membership is free of charge, and once you have registered you will receive regular dates of upcoming sales. And pssst — since you will be shopping from the comfort of your home, you can bid goodbye to catfights that usually result during sales at a brick-and-mortar store.

99 Labels CEO Ishita Swarup (left) prefers to keep the designerwear on her portal classic, like this Rina Dhaka ensemble

The portals spoil you for choice what with their repertoire of international and Indian brands. There’s Desicouture, which as its name suggests, offers only Indian designerwear including collections by Shantanu & Nikhil and Neeta Lulla. Prices start at Rs 1,350.

For international brands (read: DKNY, Hugo Boss, Armani, Moschino, TAG Heuer, Boggi Milano) you need to check out Fashionandyou, Brandmile and 99 Labels.

And don’t worry about whether the outfit you bought on a portal will fit or not. For, the portals display comprehensive size charts for each outfit, be it a dress, a shirt or a skirt. The payment options are pretty convenient too and you can pay online with a credit card or pay cash on delivery.

Swarup of 99 Labels says that the trick to landing a good bargain is to be quick in making the kill. For, a sale typically finishes within three to five days of being announced.

The key, therefore, is to log on as early as you can every day. “Start at 11am if you can. Things get sold out in the matter of hours,” says Uppal of Fashionandyou. A recent perfume sale on Fashionandyou lasted just two hours.

On the 99 Labels portal, the homepage gives you all the information you want in a nutshell. It lists out the sales for the day from brands like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Sonia Rykiel. You can expect discounts of between 35 per cent and 50 per cent.

Fashionandyou CEO Pearl Uppal offers a wide range of international brands for accessories like perfumes and watches

The only catch to the entire proceedings is that you will have to be content with designerwear that’s a season old. Saxena of Brandmile is quick to point out: “Trends last a few seasons so the products are never dated.” He founded the portal in October 2009 along with his London-based partner Dirk Quaquedeke.

In Hyderabad, Dr Meghna Pradipak Reddy, who founded Desicouture (www.desicouture.net) in September, 2009, assures you of tailor-made designerwear. “Customisation is our USP. If customers give us their measurements, we alter the outfits accordingly,” she says.

Soon you can look forward to another fashion portal — First Row (www.firstrow.in). Currently, a travelling boutique that holds exhibitions of Indian designer collections in the metros, it’s slated to go online with its e-boutique collections in March-April this year. It’s promising “unthinkable bargain prices’’.

Besides bringing top-notch signatures into your homes as it were, the portals are also taking them to the small towns where these brands don’t retail. Says Swarup: “Fashion is aspirational. When we reach across India from Trichy to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and from Chhattisgarh to Guwahati, we know we are putting them on the map of international fashion.”

So get started — you don’t want to miss out on the early bird pickings.