Have you ever wondered what other people are looking at while you’re looking at clothes online? Okay, we haven’t either, but Net-a-Porter Live does exactly that and the result is equivalent to online fashion crack.

Net-a-Porter has been doing a lot of innovative things for a while. Branded content? Everyone from LVMH to Dolce & Gabbana and Diet Coke have gotten on board recently, and online advertising stats indicate that it’s a growing category. Net-a-Porter’s been pushing content as a commerce driver for the 10 years that they’ve been around. Whether it’s the iPhone or iPad, you can count on Net-a-Porter to be one of the first fashion brands there, and usually with an app that’s far more engaging than those on offer from full time media companies. In other words, it probably shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Net-a-Porter is the company behind a  real time, location based e-commerce offering that’s actually really interesting.

In real time, you can see how many people around the world are browsing the site with you, and what they’re adding to their carts, wishlists or sharing through social media and e-mail. It’s the type of thing that you can’t look away from, even if you weren’t really looking for anything. We’d imagine that for anyone on the fence about an item, it can also be a gentle nudge of peer pressure to grab an item before someone else walks away with it.

If something catches your eye, clicking on the image brings up a perfectly integrated box where you can order it, add it to a wishlist or Like it to get the word out on Facebook.

Without being more deeply integrated with a merchant, it’s hard to tell what people are actually buying from a site, but our first thought looking at this was that if Boutiques had done something along this path, they might not be headed for the deadpool. With Facebook likes being the only public piece of data, a 3rd party mashup with multiple merchants wouldn’t look exactly the same, but in our data driven fashion fantasies the social fashion data from EDITD could power something similarly great.

Regardless of how others may pick up on it, we’ve already lost time, um, researching this and we’re pretty sure it will keep a few other people browsing longer and potentially buying more.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America/CFDA Foundation, Inc. promotes and supports the cause and others in the industry have partnered with the FTBC initiative like Net-A-Porter, Calvin Klein, Saks, QVC, Elson & Company and the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

When we learned about this year’s plans we thought it was an innovative and unique idea for this very significant cause. Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2011, September 9-16, 2010 in New York City will kick off and Nine West has joined the relief effort, partnering with Omron, the CFDA, Sony, Marilyn, IMG Models and Elite Model Management in raising funds this year. The interesting part though is not just the awesome Nine West runway show, but  the entire week’s worth of festivities during Fashion Week that the models experience.

“The models will don a limited-edition pair of Runway Relief boots, equipped with an Omron GOSmart Pocket Pedometer, to track each modelâ€s steps as she runs between castings, fittings and fabulous parties throughout the week. For every step she takes, a donation will be made to Fashion Targets Breast Cancer. Nigel Barker will host the program on August 31st with a photo shoot of the participating models in an iconic New York location, and you can catch the live stream on Nine Westâ€s Facebook page or on www.modelinia.com.” {Fashion Pulse Daily}

If you love the boots they will be available to the public on August 31st for $199. Nothing beats great fashion and helping a worthy cause.

While it makes perfect sense, it will probably take a few more years before this would be seriously considered. Despite the rise of digital, magazine editors still hold so much sway that it’s difficult to imagine them giving up their 3-month lead time, or moment of importance being photographed front row.

Massenet says that a skilled editor or buyer can look at something on a rack and know if it’s right, and we have to agree. When covering the Vendome Luxury and Rendez-Vous trade shows in Paris, there were plenty of pieces that stood out just because they were great products. There weren’t any light shows, music, special effects or special displays, and they weren’t needed. There weren’t a lot of models, or spectacles, but it was really much better that way. There were designers who stopped us to tell us why their line was unique, and encourage us to touch, representatives who were happy to let us browse and snap pictures, and fortunately, much more time than the 60 or so seconds you get to try to experience the same thing from a seat along the runaway.

Are runway shows exciting? Absolutely, but if fashion wants to make the most of them, we agree with Massenet that it’s a production best reserved for the real VIPs – the customers and fans of a brand.

Come September, consumers can purchase directly from marcjacobs.com

Reluctance to embrace technology and the Internet, however, has been the norm for luxury fashion brands. Most labels feared department stores would be angry if designers and their wealthy customers dealt directly with one another. A large number of brands relied on department store sites and others like Net-a-Porter to sell their goods online, but the state of the economy has forced department stores to cut steep prices, angering luxury companies that were already worrying about their relevance into the future and ability to compete with knock-off retailers. {The New York Times}

“I was so annoyed last year that I wished no one had our merchandise,” President and Vice Chairman of Mar Jacobs Robert Duffy told the New York Times. “All the department stores were panicked, and they were marking things down.”

Duffy also suggested that the online store for Marc Jacobs may offer exclusive merchandise to attract customers. {Elle}

Word on the street is Jimmy Choo, Hugo Boss, Vince, Lancôme, St. John, Theory, Kiehlâ€s, Lilly Pulitzer, Donna Karan and La Perla will soon or have already launched e-commerce stores on their own Web sites. It seems high fashion is finally realizing profits on clothes sold directly to consumers will be much higher with no middleman taking a cut or dictating prices.

High fashion has everything to gain by taking their products to their own Web pages, but the consumer may end up being the loser in this equation if luxury retailers pull their merchandise from department stores altogether and spike their prices. That may be unlikely to happen immediately, since the economic downturn has caused many aspirational customers to reduce spending on designer clothing, but when the recession truly fades and people begin spending more, high fashion prices might soar above skyscrapers.

“We have always said that Net-a-Porter will remain a womanâ€s brand and now we are ready to create a dedicated menâ€s shopping destination entirely conceived with the stylish man in mind.

We have a ready-made customer base for our menâ€s business. 100% of our customers have a man in their lives in some capacity and 59% of them are married or living with their partners… Additionally we look forward to welcoming a new group of super stylish men who join us to shop for themselves.”

– Natalie Massenet, executive chairman of Net-a-Porter

Net-a-Porter makes a move on the menswear market in January 2011 with brands like Dunhill

Mr. Porter (the name of the men’s site) will launch in January 2011 with Spring/Summer 2011 collections from labels including Ralph Lauren, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Burberry, Dunhill and Rick Owens among 54 others. {Telegraph}

While 60 designers pales in comparison to the more than 250 designers represented on the women’s site, there should be plenty of room for growth. During the worst of the recession, established designers like John Galliano and Matthew Williamson and celebrated upstarts like Alexander Wang and Garth Pugh all jumped into the menswear market to expand their customer base.

While Net-a-Porter’s ladies helped them make it through turbulent economic times, offering a site that has the potential to double their audience of more than 2.2 million monthly shoppers is a smart move at any time.

The first invitations to the site went out almost exactly one year ago, and in that time it’s gotten pretty popular – about 1.2 million people a month visit to answer personality questions. Hunch’s latest time killing, but fun, service is a Twitter followers analyzer that makes educated guesses about the people following you. The service only works with accounts that have more than 1000 followers right now, which means we couldn’t get anything back for our wonderful readers who follow @Signature9, but our hunch is that if you do you’re gorgeous, brilliant and charming. Gorgeous, brilliant and charming, but not following Signature9? You should click here, click follow and fix that!

Back to the original topic. There’s nothing earth shattering in the revelations – Gilt Groupe followers are likely to be female (we could have gotten that one), but some of them are fun. Here are a few of the odder hunches we found when running some of our favorite Tweetstars through.

The followers of fashion favorites @GiltGroupe @Sartorialist and @InsideDVF would rather ride a Vespa than a Harley.

@NetAPorter followers think alien abductions are real

@Fashionista_com and @GaranceDore followers have mailed a hand-written note, letter or card in the last 6 months

@Karl_Lagerfeld followers: prefer smaller portions of food that are arranged well, have dated or hooked up with someone they met online, choose the New York Times over the Wall Street Journal or USA Today as their free hotel paper of choice, can make reservations in 2 or 3 languages (only at restaurants that don’t overfeed you, of course), aren’t reading Vogue for the articles, think All-You-Can-Eat buffets are gross, are Mac people, and like celebrity gossip, reality TV and awards shows among other things.

Would you rather: George or Mario?

And who do these people consider most attractive out of a Nicole Kidman, Eva Longoria Parker, Mario Lopez, George Clooney lineup? The ladies who follow Lagerfeld love Clooney. @WomensWearDaily and @AmericanApparel followers agree, while @LouisVuitton_US followers prefer Mario Lopez.

Moving on to the foodies, @DavidLebovitz’s followers are also Clooney and Vespa people, frequent flossers, own a single piece of art valued at more than $2500, have something in their closet from Prada, Gucci, or Dolce & Gabbana and like opera.

@ClotildeNet (Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini) followers think crossword puzzles are more pleasure than pain, also like opera, and will take a meal prepared at home over one of those small, pretty restaurant dishes.

And what should we know about the people following the Tech Set? @TechCrunch followers will buy you birthday cake from an expensive bakery, gave flowers to someone not including mom, dad, grandma or grandpa in the last 6 months, can deal with roaches, spiders and snakes, but are creeped out by rats (we’re creeped out by all of them), are only reading Playboy for the articles, go for Eva Longoria Parker in the attractive multiple-choice category, and would share their $100+ bottle of wine with her.

@Mashable followers will also make sure you’re not stuck with a grocery store cake, also get the creeps from rats, support charities regularly, and they likely have a famous celebrity or politician on speed dial in their iPhone.

Want to know where the wealthy shop online in the UK? Visit Signature9 UK for a look at the UK shopping sites popular with high earners.

It’s impossible to break out apparel shoppers for department store sites (many of which also sell home and garden items), so it should be noted than not every visitor browsing macys.com is there for clothing, beauty or jewelry items. But even if half of the visitors are there for dresses instead of dishes, Macy’s is attracting one of the largest (and richest) online shopping audiences.

Our data is from Google’s Ad Planner, which only offers visitor and demographic information going back one year. We can’t say if the economy has played a role in shifting online shopping preferences, but presently, wealthy online shoppers aren’t visiting luxury destinations in the same volume as they visit e-commerce sites with mid-level pricing. A possible silver lining for sites specializing in luxury sales: while they may not get the same volume of traffic, it’s quite possible that high end e-commerce sites earn more per sale and visitor.

Of the top 20 apparel e-commerce sites attracting the largest number of wealthy online shoppers, 6 (30%) are sites specializing in discount sales. Gilt and Rue La La are neck and neck for the title of the invitation sale site with the wealthiest visitors. Allowing for a small sampling error, the two sites could even reach the same number of wealthy visitors. The advantage, however, goes to Gilt Groupe, who attracts a combined 1.2 million visitors across the main Gilt site, and recently launched sister (and brother) sites Gilt Fuse and Gilt Man. Combined, Gilt Groupe attracts more visitors earning $100,000 or more than any other online only e-commerce apparel site besides Zappos. Pretty impressive for a company that’s not even 3 years old.

When it comes to visitors earning $100k or more per year, invitation sale sites may not have as many visitors as department stores, but as a percentage of visitors, a sizable portion are in this desirable online shopper demographic.

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It remains to be seen how many people take advantage of the expedited shipping, but we can easily see this becoming very popular around the holidays. Thought the economy may not mean the same long lines and crazy crowds as seasons past, the ability to let someone else deal with the traffic and trouble will surely be an attractive prospect.

For now, Express Delivery is only available in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Seattle though Chicago, Indianapolis and Phoenix are on the agenda. Early birds still get the best opportunity: Seattle offers the latest same day order time of 1 PM and most of the other cities have a cutoff time between 10 AM and 11 AM.

Net-a-porter’s the only other site we knew of with same day delivery (in New York and London), the race is on to see if other retailers join the list.

Read more {CrunchGear}

Read more {Amazon}