“How To Spend It was conceived in the ’90s, the era of the yuppies in the City [London’s financial district], that Wall Street culture,” says Ellison. “It was tongue in cheek and had that playful take on spend but, as we become more international, our readership is not going to understand that City boy language. It was time to elaborate and expand on the meaning of spend.”

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“When I started in 2019, there was this concept of luxury that How To Spend It had enshrined and that was quite rigid and specific,” she says. “I was very keen straight away to try to look at the subject of luxury from a slightly broader perspective and push into that idea of a lifestyle magazine.”

Ellison was careful – she did not want to alienate the publication’s loyal readership. Her changes were gradual but evident, starting from a long overdue redesign to an expansion in coverage.

“I don’t want to jettison the core value of luxury and of our brand. We are a luxury consumer magazine. I’m not going to pretend anything else,” she says. “But I wanted to open up the magazine so that everybody could find something, which doesn’t mean you can necessarily afford the holiday or the clothes but a magazine should be about an experience and giving you ideas and inspiration and taking you on a journey.

“It [should be] something that touches on everyone’s lives even if you’re just buying fancy pasta in a supermarket.”

The meaning of luxury has changed in the last few years. It’s a change that has been accelerated by the pandemic, which has made luxury consumers reconsider the way they part with their hard-earned money.

“What is representation and who you’re speaking to and diversifying the content has been a huge focus,” says Ellison. “The Financial Times implemented a strategic change and a diversity council; it’s beholden to editors now to look at their content not only in terms of the people on the pages but also the writers and contributors so that you have different voices and they’re not coming from a homogeneous gene pool.”

The resilience of the luxury market has been a boon to HTSI, which never cut any issues – even at the height of the pandemic – and has increased the frequency of its print version to 36 issues per year.

“Print is king. HTSI is a physical product that goes into the doorways of some of the most influential people in the world and sits on their coffee table, so we want to look as good as we possibly can,” says Ellison. At the same time, she adds, increasing online readership is paramount to make the publication more accessible globally.

While HTSI is based in London, Ellison says that making it relevant to its international readers has been her priority from day one and that she keeps pushing her team to speak to a broader audience.

As someone with impeccable taste and a loyal following among fashion insiders and beyond, Ellison has also helped HTSI raise its profile in the industry. The publication’s previous editorial team was low-key and played a very small role outside its pages, while Ellison is a very visible presence at industry events like fashion week.

“I’ve never asked anyone to take a picture of me outside a show but we’re at a time when people are more interested in the personalities behind the magazines,” says Ellison, who introduced an editor’s letter at HTSI to be closer to her readers.

“You can’t exist without the readers – you have to embrace them and you can’t hold them at arm’s length.”