For those that thought FedEx’s same-day service was as boujee as shipping got, the New York Times recently profiled Worldnet, the little-known logistics outfit that nearly every important fashion house / stylist / editor / gala attendee / etc. relies upon to ship the world’s most rarified clothing.
“To ensure safe and smooth transit of luxury goods, houses, stylists, publicists and editors have long relied on one strategy: call Worldnet” the Times said. And, like the Winston Wolf of the fashion industry, they’ve proven themselves time and again to be able to handle nearly “any logistical snafu [that] creates that oxymoronic but highly volatile condition known as a ‘fashion emergency.’”
They finesse things through customs, locate personal items gone missing, Houdini their way through rush hour traffic, and otherwise meet “precious and pressing” deadlines, all in the name of the fussiest, most demanding clientele on earth. (They were tasked with moving Meghan Markle’s wedding dress from Givenchy’s Paris office to London, for gravitational context.)
In one notable instance, the Times reported that Marc Jacobs “needed to overnight its new collection from the factory in Italy to New York Fashion Week, and a fluke snowstorm hit the Italian countryside, making the mountain route impassable.” But instead of raising the white flag a la FedEx/UPS, Worldnet put the entire collection on a mf snowmobile, navigated the literal countryside, and got it to an airport on time.
“We would need to get clothes to a W shoot in the desert two hours from an airport,” one executive said. “Worldnet gets in a car. FedEx does not do that.” And though the process is never cheap, it’s no wonder that the Elite’s Elite swear by the lean, ruthlessly effective organization.
But it’s not just the high-priority shipping market that they have cornered — their staff-issue hoodies have become a flex in of themselves. As one editor explained, “wearing Worldnet gear is a style choice that simultaneously pays tribute to the shipping firm and signifies tribal status — unless you’re in fashion, you can’t get one.”
You can read more at The New York Times.
