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The organisations that outperform don’t react to disruption. They build cultures that anticipate it. Luxury’s digital transformation succeeded because it was a cultural transformation before it was a technological one. AI will increase the value of human judgement, creativity and trust rather than replace them. Technology should solve business problems, not become the strategy itself. Transformation isn’t another corporate initiative. It has to become part of an organisation’s DNA. Global leaders build perspective before they build influence. Luxury’s greatest competitive advantage will remain profoundly human.

Luxury has not only lost customers. It may have lost relationships. The industry’s problem is emotional, not only commercial. Consumers have not necessarily lost spending power, but they are becoming more cautious about where they invest emotionally. Creators are now part of the marketing engine. They are no longer a nice-to-have or an afterthought. They are shaping taste, trust, community and purchase decisions. Luxury needs to become more culturally agile. The brands that move too slowly, over-polish everything or refuse to adapt to platform behaviour risk becoming irrelevant. Personal brands are becoming business infrastructure. For founders, designers and emerging luxury brands, the fastest way to build trust may be through the person behind the product. Real-life connection is back. After years of mass linking and online-only growth, creators and consumers are craving experiences, dinners, community and physical touchpoints. The future belongs to brands that can explain themselves simply. If a brand cannot say what makes it different in one sentence, it will struggle to be remembered.

For this episode Ashley hosts a live panel at Café en Seine in Dublin with Mary Furtas, founder of Cult Naked, Alana Murrin, founder of Saint Studios, Carlotta Rodben, founder of Beyond Luxury Group, Jonathan Siboni, serial entrepreneur and luxury data expert, and Lynn Kelly, content creator and influencer. Nobody in the room agreed on a single definition of luxury. That was the point. Beyoncé has worn Cult Naked six times on her current tour. Mary built that without a PR budget, a label on her clothes, or a plan B. One in four people feel lonely. Carlotta argues this is the most important stat in luxury right now. Luxury is no longer about what you own. It is about how you live, how you feel, and who you share it with.

Amira’s journey starts far from the traditional fashion capitals. Originally from Kansas, she studied in Texas before moving to New York to build a career in fashion. Scholarships changed the direction of her life. Through the Fashion Scholarship Fund, Amira was awarded the Virgil Abloh Postmodern Scholarship and later won support a second time, opening doors to industry networks, international experience and new possibilities. Her career has moved across the business of fashion. From e-commerce at Dickies to wholesale markets, Loewe in Paris, Kate Spade in New York and major department store accounts including Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom, she has built a strong understanding of how fashion actually works commercially. Paris changed her view of the industry. Her internship at Loewe gave her a first look at global fashion, international markets and the difference between understanding fashion through an American lens and seeing it through a more global one. The next generation needs creative and technical skills. For Amira, the business side of fashion is increasingly about data, Excel, numbers, speed and adaptability as much as taste, relationships and storytelling.

For this episode, Ashley sits down with Ilaria Resta, CEO of Audemars Piguet, to discuss heritage, innovation, circular leadership, sustainability, and one of the most talked-about watch collaborations of the year. The mission is bigger than any one CEO. Ilaria sees herself as part of a 151-year story, with a responsibility to protect the manufacturer’s founding values while adapting to a changing world. Circular leadership is not a metaphor. It is a way of keeping decision-making close to the people who know: watchmakers, clients, artisans, suppliers and markets. Royal Pop was not a marketing stunt. It was an education strategy, a cultural opening and a call to protect the future of mechanical watchmaking. The biggest threat to watchmaking is not technology. It is irrelevance.

For this episode, Ashley sits down with Malinda Sanna to discuss luxury research, the psychology of high-spending women, the shift from status to agency, and why the next frontier of luxury might be less about advertising and more about listening. Luxury consumers are full of contradictions. A woman might put Hermès or Byredo in the guest bathroom, use Dove herself, and still have the means to buy almost anything. The why behind that behaviour is where the insight lives. The new luxury buyer wants agency. She is less defined by the male gaze or visible logos, and more focused on what makes her feel good, cared for, informed and in control. Transparency is becoming part of desire. Today’s luxury client wants to know what sits behind the velvet curtain: leadership, values, sustainability, culture and how the business actually behaves. VICs do not just want dinners anymore. These women work, lead, host, donate, travel and buy. To impress them, luxury brands need more creativity, more access and more meaningful forms of engagement. The real value of research is not confirmation. Malinda does not want a client to say, “That confirms what we already knew.” She wants them to say, “We never thought of it that way.”

This week, we are back in Dublin at the Cartier Espace at Paul Sheeran Jewellers for something more candid than a recap. It’s a post game analysis of Live from Abu Dhabi, the largest showcase of Irish design in the Middle East to date, and a case study in what it actually takes to execute “luxury” outside your home market. Ashley is joined live by four women who made the project real: Lesley Keane (Ayu Cosmetics), Jess Colivet, Anne O'Shea, and Jenny Johnston (Azure Communications), covering beauty, production, styling, invites and print. The conversation is intimate, funny and specific in the best way, less about the highlight reel and more about naming the mechanics. Funding came in stages, sponsors were sequenced, and the show was built to hold a luxury standard abroad. Every seat had a purpose. Guest outreach ran like a campaign, not an invite list. Backstage was a full operations problem: 40 looks, limited models, fast changes and a house turned into a working production floor. The moments that almost went wrong are the proof of craft having 300 magazine covers reprinted overnight, a lighting issue caught just before the room filled. Day 2 was a desert shoot with Irish creatives and brands, the kind of asset most productions could never afford to build on their own.

For this episode, Ashley sits down with Marc Chaya, CEO and co-founder of Maison Francis Kurkdjian, to unpack the philosophy, the partnership, and the fight behind one of luxury perfumery’s most distinctive houses. The career didn’t start in fragrance. It started in survival, then finance, then a dinner party conversation that changed everything. The perfumer has always been the best kept secret in the room. Francis Kurkdjian was behind some of the most loved scents in the world and almost no one knew his name. That was the injustice Marc set out to fix. The dupe debate is being framed wrong. Perfumers are the only creators in the world who cannot legally protect what they make. Commercial success was never the goal. It was the consequence.

This week, Ashley sits down with Dominique Busso, the entrepreneur behind three of the most exciting media moves happening in France right now. He launched Time magazine in France for the first time in the publication's 100 year history. He built Oniriq from scratch, a luxury and lifestyle magazine that weighs 750 grams and feels like it. And he just signed the deal to bring Sports Illustrated to France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Monaco. All of this from a core team of 15 people in central Paris. TL;DR: This Week’s Podcast Episode He launched the first media website in France in October 1995. Dominique has never once been behind the curve. A French edition of Time Magazine had never existed. Dominique changed that. Angelina Jolie reached out to be on the cover of Time France’s first edition. Oniriq was built because the world needed a luxury magazine that was actually made in France, by French people, about the country where luxury was born. Sports Illustrated France was discussed over lunch in Saint-Tropez. The website launched three weeks later. Follow along on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok, and join the conversation.

This week, we’re coming to you live from PFW with Rachelle Cunningham, a fashion illustrator and painter whose work has moved from a hospital room to the front rows of couture, and now into fashion you can actually wear. Rachelle has worked with CHANEL, Vogue, Vivienne Westwood, Nina Ricci, and more, but the most interesting part of her story is how it happened: through sharing consistently online, building an unmistakable aesthetic, and treating every moment as a potential bridge rather than a closed door.

This week, Ashley is in Paris with Romina Introini (Romilux), one of the street style and fashion photographers shaping how Fashion Month is seen in real time. You have likely seen her work on official fashion week accounts, brand channels, and creator feeds. What you may not know is the path that built it: documenting life in Uruguay, a retail job at Zara, and a decision to keep showing up to fashion week long before there were clients attached. For Episode 5, our host Ashley McDonnell sits down with Romina Introini (Romilux), a street style and fashion photographer documenting Fashion Month in real time across NY, Paris, Milan, and London. Romina didn’t break in through a traditional route. She built a portfolio in public, then let the work create its own gravity. Street style is not just taste. It’s positioning, speed, editing, and distribution, and she approaches it like a discipline. The “breakthrough” role with London Fashion Week arrived at the last minute, but it was earned through seasons of self-funded consistency. Scaling output required structure, not hustle. She built a small team to support video, editing, and behind the scenes storytelling. Her clearest advice is the most practical: start with what’s around you and build proof of work before opportunity arrives.

Welcome back. Last week, Ashley McDonnell sat down Gordon Renouf, co founder of Good On You, to unpack what sustainability can actually be measured, what brands disclose versus what they claim, and why overconsumption keeps accelerating. If you missed it, listen here. For Episode 4, our host Ashley McDonnell sits down with Tracey Warren, CEO and founding partner of F5 Collective, a funding ecosystem accelerating women owned businesses. Consumer brands are told to raise venture capital as the default, yet the funding system is not built for how most women build businesses. The loudest funding pathway is not always the right one, and venture capital has not meaningfully evolved in decades. F5 Collective is designed as an ecosystem, not a single product, combining commerce, community, expert support, and funding pathways in one place. The hardest constraint in consumer is not demand, it is cashflow timing, especially around purchase orders, stock, and delayed retailer payments. F5 Collective reframes shopping as a form of funding, because revenue is often the best early stage capital and your wallet drives what scales. Modern traction signals like waitlists, sell out drops, and creator led momentum are real, but legacy underwriting struggles to read them. A new ownership pathway is emerging, buying existing businesses and modernising them, and F5 Collective has this on the roadmap as a future funding product.

Welcome back. Last week, Ashley McDonnell sat down Annabel Hay, founder and CEO of Clutch Glue, to unpack what happens after virality, from manufacturing and retail expansion to fundraising strategy and systems that scale. If you missed it, listen here. For Episode 3, our host Ashley McDonnell sits down with Gordon Renouf, co founder of Good On You. Good On You rates brands out of five using roughly 50 topics, and up to 900 data points for larger brands. The first test of “sustainable” is transparency, not intent, not values, not packaging. We spend a similar share of income on clothes as 20 to 60 years ago, but buy four to five times more garments. A “zero” score is rarely drama, it is silence, meaning near zero disclosure on basics. Regulation matters, but culture and incentives matter more than purity, and poorly designed rules can drive greenhushing. Retailers and landlords may become the fastest enforcement layer, because distribution and tenancy are leverage.

This week, Ashley is in Sydney with Annabel Hay, founder and CEO of CLUTCH Glue and one of Shark Tank Australia’s most talked about contestants. Not yet 30 and already having pivoted from construction management to building a global consumer brand, Annabel breaks down what happens after virality, from manufacturing and logistics to retail expansion, fundraising strategy, and the operational systems required to scale. CLUTCH Glue started with a simple problem. A night out, failing fashion tape, and one thought: “It would be so much easier if I could just glue myself into my clothes.” Annabel built an alternative to body tape that lets you glue, rather than tape, clothes to your body. Four years of R&D later, CLUTCH is patented, sweat resistant, water soluble, hypoallergenic, non toxic, and designed to wash off when you are done. Virality came fast. A 10 second TikTok hit 9M views overnight and sold out the first 5,000 units. Then the real work began, scaling manufacturing, tightening operations, and turning attention into a repeatable business. Shark Tank was strategy, not luck. Annabel spent six months and more than 100 hours preparing, then landed the strap moment that made the product instantly click on camera. The clip later became one of the show’s most viral moments and introduced CLUTCH to a global audience. Retail came later. DTC first for margin and data, then founder led outreach to get ranged. CLUTCH hit Priceline shelves and became the number one best selling product within a week.

For our first Tech Powered Luxury podcast episode of 2026, our host Ashley McDonnell sits down with IMAGE Skincare founder Janna Ronert Problem first wins. IMAGE Skincare started with rosacea and built for outcomes, not aesthetics. Relief creates loyalty and group chat recommendations. Credibility before scale. Clinical proof is real distribution currency, especially when competing with Big Pharma budgets. Luxury skincare equals results plus a great experience. If it works but feels or smells bad, people stop using it. Sensory equals compliance. Innovation and relationships are the building blocks. Constant reformulation keeps products modern, and in person education builds trust. The ultimate KPI is repeat purchase because it worked. Join the Tech Powered Luxury community via our Substack, Linkedin, Instagram and TikTok!