Infacet the ugly Net-a-Porter cut up that is surprising the style trade

In June, Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet, 60, walked the pink carpet on the Tribeca Festival in New York City. She regarded stylish as she smiled for photographers in a modern black midi costume and Valentino kitten heels, however privately, her life was in disarray.

Weeks earlier, Massenet had found that her romantic accomplice of almost 15 years, Erik Torstensson, 47, had been residing a “secret life” of drug abuse, affairs, and prostitutes, based on a bombshell lawsuit she filed in Los Angeles on August twentieth. 

The swimsuit alleges Torstensson “seduced Massenet and schemed to pursue a romantic relationship in addition to their professional one,” utilizing her to “bolster his professional career.” It claims she poured over $95 million into funding Torstensson’s extravagant life-style and supporting his enterprise ventures through the years whereas he was hiring prostitutes, abusing medication like cocaine and ecstasy, and dishonest with youthful girls — one in every of whom was allegedly a pal of her daughter’s. Now, Massenet says, Torstensson is reneging on his guarantees to repay her, and she or he is suing for quite a few claims together with fraud, breach of contract and inflicting her “severe emotional distress.”

“People have been known to have double lives,” a stylist, who has labored with each Massenet and Torstensson and was “very surprised” by the lawsuit, advised The Post.

It’s an unsightly ending for some of the influential {couples} in trend. Massenet is extensively credited with revolutionizing on-line luxurious buying. Torstensson is understood for his branding savvy; he co-founded Frame, the “model-off-duty” denim model popularized by the likes of Emily Ratajkowski and Karlie Kloss. The couple had been fixtures at elite trend occasions and threw unique events at their houses in London, New York City and the Hamptons.

“If Erik Torstensson and Dame Natalie Massenet host a house party, you must do anything you can to nab an invitation,” Tatler magazine as soon as declared. Now, the ability couple is unraveling.

Massenet, a former journalist, launched Net-a-Porter in 2000. She rapidly grew the designer trend portal into an e-commerce powerhouse.

“The term visionary is applicable when it comes to Natalie Massenet,” tradition and trend journalist Mosha Lundström Halbert advised the Post. “She had the idea and the instinct to execute the concept of bringing the multi-brand department store luxury fashion experience to the internet, which hadn’t really been done.”

Around 2009, Massenet, who was then married to French financier Arnaud Massenet, met Torstensson, a strapping Swedish man 13 years her junior. At the time, he was working a advertising company with fellow Swede Jens Grede.

He initially pitched Massenet the idea of an extension of Net-a-Porter aimed toward males, however by late 2010 their relationship had turned romantic, per the grievance.

That identical 12 months, Massenet offered her majority stake in Net-a-Porter for an estimated $76 million and remained on as govt chairman. In 2011, she introduced that she’d cut up from her first husband.

Massenet and Torstensson quickly turned trend’s glamorous, wildly profitable first couple, lighting up pink carpets and paling round with supermodels and designers.

When Torstensson and Grede launched Frame denim in 2012, Net-a-Porter carried its first assortment. Massenet launched her beau to her highly effective community, together with Anna Wintour, designer Diane Von Furstenberg and Glossier founder Emily Weiss, the grievance states.

“That’s the currency in this industry,” Lundström Halbert mentioned. “It’s relationships, direct introductions, it’s favors, it’s that kind of access. You can’t put a price on that.”

Massenet left Net-a-Porter in 2015 with $153 million, and went on to launch a enterprise capital agency, Imaginary Ventures, that’s invested in varied buzzy manufacturers together with Everlane, Reformation and Daily Harvest.

Meanwhile, Torstensson’s enterprise accomplice, Jens Grede, and his spouse, Emma Grede, turned key gamers within the Kardashian enterprise empire. In 2016, Emma launched the denim line Good American with Khloe Kardashian. Three years later, the couple cofounded Skims with Kim Kardashian.

Torstensson invested in each ventures, and Massenet claims she supported him by changing into an early investor as effectively. Today, Torstensson’s stake in Skims alone is price “in excess of $300 million,” based on Massenet’s lawsuit.

She believed in Torstensson, at one level calling him her “best investment,” the swimsuit says.

“My God, she was so in love with that man,” a trend trade insider who labored with each Massenet and Torstensson mentioned.

They had a baby collectively through surrogate in 2017, and loved the fruits of her their success. (Massenet has two daughters, ages 25 and 19, from her earlier marriage.)

According to the lawsuit, Torstensson was an enormous spender, chartering non-public jets and shopping for artwork as an alternative of fulfilling his guarantees to repay Massenet. In a 2023 interview with the Financial Times, he mentioned a part of his “uniform” was a Patek Philippe Nautilus, a watch that may retail for over $100,000. After the renovation of Massenet’s English countryside mansion, Torstensson orchestrated a number of articles about it, the swimsuit says, together with an eight-page unfold in The Wall Street Journal in 2022.

But in 2024, Torstensson grew erratic, ingesting closely, disappearing for nights and struggling frequent panic assaults and unexplained diseases, based on the lawsuit. In May, when Torstensson returned to New York after a piece journey to Los Angeles, he advised Massenet that he was now not in love together with her and didn’t imagine their romantic relationship might proceed.

The dialog was “shocking and traumatic for Massenet,” per the authorized grievance, who thought they had been simply going by a tough patch.

“She was blinded by it,” the insider mentioned.

At the suggestion of their relationship counselor, Torstensson checked right into a remedy heart. While he was away, Massenet discovered one in every of his outdated cellphones that contained “indisputable evidence, including explicit texts and photographs, that Torstensson had maintained multiple affairs with several younger women for years,” per the grievance. One of those girls was somebody in Massenet’s daughter’s social circle “who had once asked Massenet to be her mentor,” the swimsuit claims.

After Massenet discovered the cellphone, Torstensson admitted to her that he was a “liar, an alcoholic, a drug addict, a sex addict and that it had gone on for seven years,” based on the lawsuit.

Massenet started to listen to of extra alleged misdeeds. A lady who labored for Torstensson at Frame advised Massenet’s pal that in 2018, he had chartered a non-public airplane to Cabo San Lucas with an unidentified girl. Massenet knew then that “the entire foundation of their relationship had been a complete lie,” the grievance mentioned.

The trend trade insider claimed that whereas many had been conscious of Torstensson’s alleged infidelities, she believes Massenet was “blindsided” by them. “Everybody, they would’ve just stayed quiet,” she mentioned. “Don’t get involved. Don’t be the one that says anything.”

Massenet is “not a foolish woman,” the style insider added. “But she was a woman in love that thought they’d be together forever.”

The Post has reached out to Torstensson and Massenet for remark.