Tech Powered Luxury

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.