For this week’s Luxury Briefing, I spoke to LuxExperience CEO Michael Kliger about how LuxExperience is using AI across Mytheresa, Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter and Yoox, and why the company’s biggest opportunity may not be automation, but instead knowing when to provide more human service. Tiffany Lopinsky, co-founder of ShopMy, and Bernstein’s Luca Solca provide insights. Also, executive moves at Saint Laurent, and news to know about Hugo Boss and Onitsuka Tiger. For tips or comments, email me at zofia@glossy.co.
Luxury e-commerce has spent years promising personalization. But at LuxExperience, the parent company of Mytheresa, Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter and Yoox, the current focus is more specific: using AI to identify which shoppers should receive more human attention.
Michael Kliger, CEO of LuxExperience, said AI is already part of how Mytheresa decides which customers to acquire, retain and serve more deeply. In an interview with Glossy, he said the company has used predictive models since 2017 to move beyond older performance-marketing metrics like cost per click or marketing spend as a percentage of revenue.
“We tried to really understand: Is the money we spend bringing valuable customers?” Kliger said. “To do that, of course, you need to build predictive models.”
The retailer’s model looks at signals including a customer’s first purchase, search behavior, payment method, products purchased, brands purchased, shipping and billing address, and even the time of day a transaction is made. Kliger said the product purchased remains one of the clearest indicators of behavior. An expensive dress or jacket may suggest a customer is building a wardrobe, while an expensive handbag may be a one-time luxury purchase.
When Mytheresa’s model identifies a first-time shopper as having high future value, the company may begin offering preferred service, complimentary shipping and returns, and potentially personal shopping before the customer has spent much.
“We start to act as a company as if she or he is already a good customer,” Kliger said.
In LuxExperience’s third quarter of fiscal 2026, reported on May 22, Mytheresa remained the group’s strongest-performing business, with net sales up 9.9% at constant currency. In the U.S., Mytheresa’s net sales rose 33.8%.
Luxury customers’ search behavior is in transition, but not at the same breakneck speed as that of large mass retailers. Kliger said customers are largely searching in traditional ways, such as by brand, product category and size. And while LuxExperience has embraced semantic search models that can understand more natural language, customers are not yet routinely typing prompts like “a sexy outfit for a night in Paris.”
“Our consumers have not yet changed, which is quite interesting,” he said. But he said companies need to prepare before behavior changes at scale. “When is water boiling? It’s not boiling at 60, at 70, at 80. It starts boiling at 99, and then it boils a lot.”
Luca Solca, senior research analyst for global luxury goods at Bernstein, said AI can help Mytheresa optimize “many different decisions,” especially around CRM. But, he said, “The key risk for multi-brand digital retailers like Mytheresa is that the search function shifts to artificial intelligence platforms, curtailing their relevance and function as a consequence.”
That puts more pressure on the experience Mytheresa controls. To keep shoppers coming back directly, its recommendations have to feel more curated and luxury-specific than a generic AI result.
Kliger said many recommendation models were built around repeat-purchase logic, which works better in grocery than in fashion. “If I bought beige trousers, for the next three weeks, I’m constantly recommended beige trousers,” he said. “[It’s like] ‘Guys, I bought one. Good that you noticed it, but no, I don’t want more of the same.’”
Instead, Mytheresa is training its recommendation models to prioritize recent signals, including what a shopper has looked at or bought in the past few weeks and what similar customers are engaging with now. “I’m less interested in what you did a year ago,” Kliger said. “I’m more interested in what you did in the last three weeks and what other people did in the last three weeks.”
For Mytheresa, merchandising remains heavily human-led, especially for new-season products. Kliger pointed to Mytheresa chief buying officer Tiffany Hsu and her team, whose role is to come back from showrooms with a point of view on what customers will want months later. People outside luxury are often surprised by “how much it’s still editor-led, still buying-led,” he said. “The data doesn’t show what sells in nine months, [but editors do].”
ShopMy is seeing a similar need for human input with Noir, its AI-assisted personal-shopping service launched last month. AI helps surface missing shopper context, while human curators choose the products and explain why each piece fits the shopper’s taste, occasion and price point.
“An algorithm can find options quickly, but so much of what shoppers gravitate toward is deeply personal,” said Tiffany Lopinsky, ShopMy’s co-founder and president. “Especially at a higher price point, people want to understand the why behind a given piece and what makes a product worth investing in.”
At LuxExperience, Kliger said AI is not currently being used as an advisor, as it is with ShopMy, in any capacity. Instead, the company is exploring how AI can reduce manual clienteling work, from pulling customer information to preparing recommendations, so personal shoppers can spend more time directly with clients. “We still believe the human touch makes a huge difference at that level,” Kliger said.
The company’s focus on events follows the same logic. More luxury retailers are following Mytheresa’s lead, leaning on dinners, trips and private experiences to deepen relationships with top customers. As a result, Kliger said, the competition is now for consumers’ time as much as it is for their spending.
For Mytheresa, a strong event is no longer defined by the food or the location alone, but instead by what happens once customers are in the room, including who they sit next to and whether the conversation feels worth their time. For example, personal shoppers may know that two customers share a background in biotech, have both lived in Switzerland or should not be seated together because their interests do not overlap. And conversation insights feed back into the company.
Kliger said LuxExperience is also watching the overlap between fashion, hospitality, well-being and longevity as its customers grow more interested in other fields, though he stopped short of pointing to a specific product or events strategy. “It’s blurring, it’s coming together,” he said. “How this is affecting us, I don’t know, but we’re looking into [the convergence].” For now, he said, events give Mytheresa a way to listen to what top customers are already discussing, from hotels and travel to cryotherapy and new wellness devices.
ViX wants a bigger slice of summer
Brazilian swimwear and resortwear brand ViX Paula Hermanny is turning its Rosie Huntington-Whiteley collaboration into a broader global growth play. Drop 2 of the collection launches on June 15, as the 25-year-old brand builds on its premium resortwear positioning. In the U.S., ViX sells through its own e-commerce site, and retailers including Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Revolve. Swim pieces range from $148-$448.
The timing coincides with a new phase for the brand. In 2025, VC company Crescera became the brand’s first institutional partner, acquiring approximately 27.8% of ViX’s holding company. For ViX global CEO Isabel Del Priore, the opportunity is bigger than swim. Resortwear, she said, has become “part of the modern life,” as customers prioritize travel, wellness and “their getaway moment.” The challenge now is scaling internationally without sanding down the brand’s Brazilian point of view. “We are elegant, and we are spicy because we are Brazilian,” Del Priore said.
That positioning is increasingly tied to younger shoppers. In Brazil, Del Priore said, around half of ViX’s client base is women ages 15-21. The brand is now looking to reproduce that community internationally, leaning on the collaboration.
Executive moves
- Saint Laurent has appointed former Isabel Marant CEO Anouck Duranteau-Loeper as deputy CEO in charge of product, effective July 1. She reports to CEO Cédric Charbit and oversees studios, collection development, merchandising and product operations.
News to know
- U.K.-based Frasers Group has made an unsolicited cash offer to buy the 74% of Hugo Boss it does not already own for €2 billion, or about $2.3 billion, valuing the German brand at €2.7 billion, or about $3.1 billion. Hugo Boss said it is reviewing the bid, while its shares jumped more than 9% on June 11.
- Japanese sneaker brand Asics will spin off Onitsuka Tiger into a wholly owned subsidiary by January 1 next year, after the 77-year-old brand grew first-quarter sales 34% to ¥37.8 billion, or about $240 million. Luxury may benefit — Onitsuka Tiger has pushed into premium fashion through appearances at Milan Fashion Week, ready-to-wear, fragrance, and past collaborations with Givenchy, Valentino and LVMH-owned Patou.
Listen in
With the World Cup returning to the U.S. for the first time since the 1990s, Nike and Adidas are treating the tournament as a major brand battleground. On the Glossy Podcast, international reporter Zofia Zwieglinska spoke with SportsVerse creator and writer Daniel-Yaw Miller about how Nike is using collaborations and renewed soccer investment to regain ground, while Adidas is leaning on decades of football nostalgia, from Sambas to legends like David Beckham and Alessandro Del Piero. Listen here.
Read on Glossy
A US microbrand is first to sell licensed World Cup watches. Why brands are turning to World Cup nostalgia. How Oner Active drives bug sales through its creator workforce.
