Busquets On The Art Of Acquisition

Carmen Busquets likes to quote Warren Buffett: “Invest in what you know.” The Venezuelan-born financier loves fashion—she was one of the original backers, in 2000, of e-commerce giant Net-a-Porter. Since then, Busquets has made major investments in Moda Operandi, where clients can preorder looks right off the runway; Unmade, which allows users to design knitwear from scratch; and PS Dept., a shopping app. Busquets is an avid collector of, well, everything: couture, jewelry, and also real estate. “I have houses in Switzerland, St. Barts, Miami, Spain, and Paris, but I don’t necessarily live in them,” she says, laughing. “I’m focused on working, so I spend my life in hotels.”

- Peter Terzian

DOWN TO BUSINESS

- Fashion e-commerce is growing, but retail is a different story. A lot of stores keep buying the same way as they used to, and in the end the sell-through is 30 or 40 percent. You can go to department stores and see clothes marked 75 percent off, and people are not even buying them. But they are buying clothes off the internet.

- Farfetch and Net-a-Porter are both e-commerce sites, but each has its own strong DNA. I don’t find that they’re competitors, even if they sell to the same client, because I am that client. I don’t go to boutiques, so I need to have them all. I don’t want to spend my whole life looking for dresses.

- A company I’m excited about is Armarium, which lets you rent high-end clothes like Roberto Cavalli or Missoni. You can get some crazy dress that you would never dare to buy. You look great, and then you return it the next day. It’s like Cinderella. That’s how millennials think.