Mr Porter founding team reunited as Mytheresa completes YNAP acquisition
Mr Porter founding team members – Toby Bateman (main image) and Jeremy Langmead – are back at the luxury menswear platform. The news comes as Mytheresa completed its acquisition of its parent company YOOX NET-A-PORTER Group to create a new global online fashion powerhouse LuxExperience.
Toby Bateman's return to Mr Porter as CEO was confirmed before Easter as the new LuxExperience executive team was revealed. He joined Mr Porter as a founding team member in 2010, initially as buying director. He was subsequently promoted to managing director before leaving in 2019. In the interim, he has held a number of roles, including CEO of online watch business Hodinkee and managing director of innovative menswear brand Vollebak.
It has been revealed today that fellow founding team member Jeremy Langmead would be returning to the business as brand director. One of the best-known names in menswear and a respected content strategist, Langmead was content director at Mr Porter from 2010 to 2014 when he left to become chief content officer at auction house Christie's. Langmead then returned to Mr Porter in 2015 as brand, content and comms director before leaving in 2020 and has been consulting and writing for the past five years.
Jeremy Langmead
He revealed his return on Instagram today saying: "Looking forward to seeing you on Monday, @mrporter 🙋🏻♂️ A treat to be able to return to the business as Brand Director and work with the amazing teams & new CEO @tobybateman once more."
Prior to joining Mr Porter, Langmead editor of Esquire UK and Editor-in-Chief of Wallpaper*. He had also held roles at The Evening Standard and The Sunday Times.
His reunion with Bateman at Mr Porter was warmly welcomed by many key industry figures, including Lucy Yeomans, former Editor-in-Chief of NET-A-PORTER's PORTER magazine and now founder of fashion styling technology platform DREST, who commented: "Now this really is the BEST news! Dream team back together." The British Fashion Council's outgoing CEO, Caroline Rush commented: "Dream team!!!".
Toby Bateman commented on LinkedIn: "I’m excited to return to MR PORTER as CEO! Also thrilled that Jeremy Langmead is re-joining as Brand Director. Mr Porter is not just a retailer, but the global authority on men’s style. A destination to discover fashion, inspiration and advice. It’s about the world’s best menswear: the product, the edit, and how you can wear it."
Mytheresa revealed today that it had successfully closed its acquisition of YNAP from luxury conglomerate Richemont, thus formally uniting two of the world's biggest and best-known multi-brand online luxury groups. The combined entity will now be known as LuxExperience, but the individual platforms within it – Mytheresa, Net-A-Porter, Mr Porter, The Outnet and YOOX – will retain their individual brand identities and platforms.
Mytheresa is now YNAP’s sole shareholder and will continue to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with the new trade name LuxExperience and a new ticker symbol of LUXE. As part of the deal, Richemont has received 49,741,342 shares in Mytheresa, representing 33% of Mytheresa’s fully diluted share capital post issuance of the consideration shares. Mytheresa also paid Richemont €555m for all shares in YNAP and no financial debt.
The new LuxExperience leadership team, under CEO Michael Kliger, was revealed earlier this month, with Heather Kaminetsky, previously President North America at Mytheresa and a former exec at NET-A-PORTER, returning to helm NET-A-PORTER as CEO. Her appointment is indicative of the strategic importance of the US market to NET-A-PORTER.
