Virtual high street Atterley Road launches

Atterley Road is a new website which brings together the cream of the British high street and independent designers.

BY Phong Luu | 15 August 2012

Gilet, £198, Maison Scotch. Polo-neck, £115, and jeans, £130, both Filippa K at atterleyroad.com

Love browsing the shops but hate trudging around the high street? Ladies, we give you Atterley Road - not a bricks and mortar thoroughfare as such, but a new website which brings together the cream of high street and boutique designers: think Brit faithfuls Whistles and Hobbs with added continental dash courtesy of hip Euro brands like Iro and By Malene Birger.

"We asked thousands of women what brands they'd like to see on their ideal shopping street - and that is what we've tried to create for them," says founder Katie Starmer-Smith, who punned on the French word for "atelier" to come up with the fictional Atterley Road. "All the brands featured are ones that I love, I buy and I wear."

The idea for the website came about after ex-Jigsaw designer Starmer-Smith's frustrations with the online shopping experience. "I find it overwhelming. Unless you're prepared to trawl dozens of individual sites, I found my options limited to multi-branded sites that offer either cheap, fast fashion or expensive designer."

Atterley Road's tightly edited selection of labels aims to bridge the mid-priced gap between Asos and Net-a-Porter - and it does a pretty good job of that, offering timeless pieces that are the workhorses of every wardrobe. "I have selected styles that are versatile and, more importantly, styles that sit seamlessly alongside each other so that it's easy to piece together key outfits," says Starmer-Smith.

It does a fine job, too, of unearthing some goodies from unexpected sources - a collared horse-print dress with a whiff of Carven about it turned out to be from Hobbs, and going for a reasonable £129, and some slick Equipment-ish shirts turned out to be from the little-known, but no less inferior (although a lot cheaper - prices start at £80) 0039 Italy. Oxford Street, schmoxford Street: we say Atterley Road is the way forward.

atterleyroad.com