Tech Powered Luxury

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.