All Dressed Up: 10 Reviews of Fashion’s Most Luxurious Websites

“Fashions fade. Style is eternal,” said renowned jewellery designer Harry Winston. And that’s exactly what big fashion houses aim to capture in their designs – eternal, timeless style. 

They create iconic pieces that everyone recognises, admires and most importantly wants. Whether that’s a Mulberry handbag, a pair of Gucci sunglasses or the infamous red-soled Louboutin shoes. Just thinking about these items conjures up something in the mind that feels desirable, iconic and familiar. But, are these world-dominating brands matching what they’ve achieved with their products on a luxury fashion website?

The KIJO team has completed a luxury fashion website audit. We’ve reviewed 10 of the most prominent fashion websites – from Louis Vuitton to Valentino to Prada. We’ve combed the catalogues and walked down the catwalks of these web pages, assessing everything from their impact, messaging, user experience (UX), user journey (UI), their uniqueness and memorability.

Luxury Fashion Website Reviews: Which Ones Did KIJO Consider?

KIJO has reviewed 10 luxury fashion websites:-

• Gucci
• Louis Vuitton
• Chanel
• Hermès
• Prada
• Burberry
• Dior
• Yves Saint Laurent
• Valentino
• Balenciaga

Here at KIJO, we undoubtedly respect and appreciate the sheer stead of these tour de force fashion houses. Our reviews simply aim to deliver a clear idea of what to expect from these luxury fashion websites and ultimately unveil what makes an exceptional fashion website overall… For this season and beyond!

Our KIJO review methodology is to provide a measured assessment of the luxury fashion website user experience (UX), help you understand how each fashion brand could improve, and we always ensure our reviews are reasonable, clear and non-partisan. 

Each fashion website has been marked out of 50 over 5 categories: Impact, Key Messaging, User Experience (UX), User Journey (UI) and Memorability.

Gucci Website

Reviewed by Liam Terry – Website Service Leader

Impact – 8/10

Key Messaging – 3/10

UX – 9/10

User Journey – 8/10

Memorability – 7/10

Total – 35/50“Gucci’s homepage is very impactful – it greets you with a big, sleek logo and a monochrome theme that lets the colour images pop. It also hosts powerful scrolling animations and user interactions too. However, its key messaging feels vague and unclear and this is where the site falters . Whilst it’s easy to find products and navigate through the pages, there’s no tangible brand messaging or value proposition at all.”

Louis Vuitton Website

Reviewed by Liam Terry – Website Service Leader

Impact – 6/10

Key Messaging – 2/10

UX – 4/10

User Journey – 8/10

Memorability – 7/10

Total – 27/50

“What the Louis Vuitton fashion website does well is navigation – products are easy to find and the Calls To Action (CTA) are clear. However, there’s room for improvement when it comes to UX. Despite strong imagery and use of video, animation is static and interactions are subtle and limited. The key messaging on the site is also incredibly minimal.”

Chanel Website

Reviewed by Liam Terry – Website Service Leader

Impact – 5/10

Key Messaging – 6/10

UX – 5/10

User Journey – 6/10

Memorability – 7/10

Total – 29/50

“This fashion website shows promise, but misses some important marks. The Chanel fashion website presents you with a unique layout, strong full-screen imagery and the collection pages have a strong lookbook feel. However, brand messaging – whilst more solid than most – is hard to find, some things that are clickable aren’t obviously so, and the animation elements are arguably quite static.”

Hermès Website

Reviewed by Kirk Thompson – Managing Director

Impact – 4/10

Key Messaging – 6/10

UX – 5/10

User Journey – 6/10

Memorability – 7/10

Total – 28/50

“The Hermès fashion website art direction is very quirky and I liked the typewriter style font – this helps the site stand out. However, the layout is quite basic and the above the fold section (the part of the web page that’s visible before a user scrolls down) doesn’t really capture much attention. There’s a lack of brand messaging on both the home and product pages, and overall, navigation is pretty standard. There is good related content on the product pages though.”

Prada Website

Reviewed by Kirk Thompson – Managing Director

Impact – 7/10

Key Messaging – 3/10

UX – 6/10

User Journey – 7/10

Memorability – 6/10

Total – 29/50

“Prada’s fashion website offers an impactful large hero banner which contains an eye-catching video. It progresses with a large card section that bolsters that initial impact. There are some effective lightbox pop-ups in the product configurations which give you previews and these are a nice touch. The shopping experience is straightforward and the large cards on the home page make for easy navigation into the product categories. Where this site falls short is its key messaging – there’s not any real brand messaging anywhere on site.”

Burberry Website

Reviewed by Liam Terry – Website Service Leader

Impact – 3/10

Key Messaging – 4/10

UX – 5/10

User Journey – 4/10

Memorability – 2/10

Total – 18/50

“Like its competitors, Burberry’s key messaging leaves much to be desired and is difficult to find. Whilst the site loads quickly, it’s arguably lacking in impact. There’s an overuse of monochrome and the font choice is easily lost. The photography is a touch on the basic side which is something you don’t expect from a high-end brand either. Navigation is overwhelming and unfortunately, I’d argue that there’s nothing unique or memorable about this fashion website.”

Dior Website

Reviewed by Liam Terry – Website Service Leader

Impact – 7/10

Key Messaging – 8/10

UX – 8/10

User Journey – 7/10

Memorability – 7/10

Total – 37/50

“This fashion website stands out for its highly engaging collection pages (although this is somewhat lacking on the home page). There’s a good mix of product and lifestyle photography which is of high-quality and these are also large and eye-catching. Unlike many of its competitors, the Dior site’s key messaging is much stronger and it hosts a very engaging brand history page. Overall, the site loads quickly, is very interactive and is relatively easy to navigate ”

Yves Saint Laurent Website

Reviewed by Liam Terry – Website Service Leader

Impact – 7/10

Key Messaging – 4/10

UX – 6/10

User Journey – 3/10

Memorability – 7/10

Total – 27/50

“This luxury fashion website hosts a simple, yet effective colour scheme and has a unique look book feel which works well. However, the font is arguably too small and animation exists in solely video format. Yves Saint Laurent, like many other sites on this list, is also lacking in any real key messaging and the messaging they do have has to be purposely sought out. The site also falls flat in terms of navigation. CTA buttons are sparing and it is overall very difficult to navigate.”

Valentino Website

Reviewed by Danny Findon-Kent – UI/UX Designer

Impact – 2/10

Key Messaging – 0/10

UX – 3/10

User Journey – 4/10

Memorability – 2/10

Total – 11/50

“Valentino’s site design is really disappointing. A bland banner greets you on the homepage and the layout feels uninspired despite the high-quality, large photography. Navigation is clunky, typography is poor (and thus unclear) and the filter bar isn’t sticky (it doesn’t stay on page as you scroll). This means users have to scroll back up to alter their search criteria – this can be very frustrating and off putting for a user. Its visual appeal and navigational system is where I’d start in improving this fashion website.”

Balenciaga Website

Reviewed by Danny Findon-Kent – UI/UX Designer

Impact – 5/10

Key Messaging – 0/10

UX – 4/10

User Journey – 5/10

Memorability – 4/10

Total – 18/50

“Balenciaga’s fashion website captures you with its bold and consistent imagery and its unique e-commerce styling helps it stand out from competitor brands. However, the design is very repetitive and navigation feels uninspired. However, it is easy to use. The check-out process is quite basic and lacks any interesting design elements. It also requires users to log in before checking out, offering no guest check out option. This opens the business up for substantial drop-out rates and this choice surprised me. Because of this, streamlining the check-out process would be one of my first ports of call in a redesign. Overall, the site fails to deliver a memorable or distinctive brand experience that sets it apart from other fashion houses. Unfortunately this can result in low engagement and low conversion rates. ”

Why Some Luxury Fashion Websites Scored Better Than Others

These ten luxury fashion website reviews aimed to compare what elements are clearly strutting their stuff and what features are simply playing dress-up. By looking deep into the closet of each site, it was clear to the KIJO team that certain sites were meeting user expectations more than others.

Here are the overall scores in descending order:

• Dior 37/50
• Gucci 35/50
• Chanel 29/50
• Prada 29/50
• Hermès 28/50
• Louis Vuitton 27/50
• Yves Saint Laurent 27/50
• Burberry 18/50
• Balenciaga 18/50
• Valentino 11/50

Dior was KIJO’s evident top model in our fashion website reviews. The site scored relatively highly when compared to the others because of its effective colour scheme. This allowed its art direction to stand out. In addition, it hosted strong brand messaging and we liked how it managed to be interactive, yet functional. It also captured a memorable and luxurious feel. Some key details that stood out to KIJO include: 

• An engaging history page
• An effective split banner that would clearly take users to fashion or beauty
• Stand-out product videos
• Psychedelic, on-brand art direction
• Useful sub-navigations on the collection pages allowing users to view products quickly

Valentino’s site unfortunately fell off of the catwalk in our evaluations. This luxury website’s design showed us exactly what to avoid wearing on our websites: 

• Generic e-commerce design and a general second-thought feel to the whole site
• Poor typography
• Not enough landing page information in the footer
• No animation or interactivity
• Complete lack of key messaging

Luxury Website Reviews by KIJO

In an increasingly expectant media age, high-end consumers expect a first-class web experience as well as a store one. Competition is fierce in the fashion world so it’s imperative that these brands recognise that their high-net-worth customers require their expectations to be met. Or, they’ll simply explore elsewhere. 

From our reviews, it’s clear that the most successful fashion websites provide ample brand information and value proposition and use these tools as a means of complementing their premium product offering. The most premium sites presented visually stunning, sleek interactions with distinctive animations and delivered them in a functional, accessible way. 

In KIJO’s opinion there are many ways each of these sites can boost their UX, UI and overall site experience. If they want to deliver a luxury online offering that matches the undoubtable quality and reputation of their products, KIJO would recommend a website update.

Posted on by Kirk Thompson