Nancy Zhang has spilt her tea. She’s laughing so much that liquid has sloshed from her cup onto the table in her Beijing office. The cause of the hilarity is my observation that she’s fast becoming the Natalie Massenet of Mainland China. As the founder of Net-a-Porter in 2000, Massenet pioneered the online selling of luxury goods, forever changing the way we consume fashion. Nancy is now doing the same for online luxury retail in China, as chief fashion adviser at husband Richard Liu’s company, JD.com, also known as Jingdong.
The comparison tickles her. “I wish!” she exclaims. “That’s so flattering. Natalie’s been the core of London fashion, and is an incredible businesswoman. Yes, I’d like to be that for China with JD.com. If I can create a great luxury platform and raise awareness about Chinese designers on an international level, then I could say that I’ve done my job. Massenet has been fantastic at that [in the West].”
Modest she might be, but Nancy, who is just 24, is not far behind Massenet. Although she doesn’t hold an official title at JD.com, the largest e-commerce venture in the country, she has become closely involved in building its fashion and luxury portfolios since marrying Richard in 2015, and today, thanks in no small part to her, JD.com is one of the world’s fastest-growing players courting the Chinese luxury market; the world’s largest.
Much of the company’s dramatic growth has occurred in the past two years since Nancy came on board. In May 2015, LVMH-owned cosmetics retailer Sephora and luxury eyewear conglomerate Luxottica launched official stores on JD.com. In the same year, the company partnered with the organisers of Milan Fashion Week to debut an “Italian Fashion Mall” on its site. JD.com was also the first—and, so far, only—retail giant to bring emerging young Chinese fashion designers to the New York and London Fashion Weeks in 2016, a practice it plans to continue.