Fashion Finally Ups The E-Commerce Ante

The fashion industry is finally thinking outside the box when it comes to e-commerce. While luxury brands still lag behind, nontraditional retailers–including Lucky magazine and street style Web site Weardrobe.com–are setting up interactive shopping features that go a step beyond typical e-tailing.

Lucky Shopping, which launched today, features over 450 brands and 860,000 unique products. But what differentiates the site is its subjective angle: The mag’s editors handpick their favorite items which are then highlighted, bringing the full-on Lucky experience to life.

Anyone who reads the magazine knows that it’s essentially a curated catalog. And now, instead of sifting through its pages, tagging the items you like and maybe searching for them online or in stores, it can all happen in a couple of clicks.

Let’s hope this venture attracts more people to Luckymag.com, which averaged 317,00 unique users per month in the year ending October 2009, according to traffic-tracking firm Compete.com. (Glamour.com, comparatively, racked up 1.5 million uniques per month during the same period.)

The street style purveyors over at Weardrobe.com are taking an equally unique approach, allowing users to purchase styles similar to what cool kids on the street are wearing. For example, an image of a woman donning a dove grey wool belted coat and purple pumps allows you to “shop the look,” offering comparable options from Calvin Klein and Franco Sarto.

I predict that there will be even more innovative approaches to fashion e-commerce popping up in the near future. Because frankly, if you love fashion, you probably love to shop, too. I look forward to seeing how seamless of an experience these nouveau retailers can create.