Shares in Italian online fashion retailer Yoox fell in early trade on Thursday after the abrupt resignation of Natalie Massenet, founder of the Net-A-Porter (NAP) group that is being bought by Yoox.

Massenet, regarded as the fashion visionary of the soon-to-be-merged business, was to become its executive chairman and oversee its editorial content, one of NAP's main strengths.

Yoox shares were down 0.4 percent by 0716 GMT after earlier shedding nearly 2 percent, bucking the trend in a positive Milan market where the blue-chip FTSE MIB index was up 0.4 percent.