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Industry insights from the Walpole British Luxury Summit 2025

Walpole British Luxury Summit 2025, UK

UK – The Walpole British Luxury Summit 2025 gathered leaders from across the global luxury sector for a day of expert talks, reports and panel discussions. The transformation of the luxury sector was a central theme, with topics ranging from emerging value systems and the integration of experience, creativity and science.

Jon Yeomans, business editor at The Sunday Times, set the tone with a speculative look at the year ahead and providing 10 potential headlines that summarise the global uncertainty facing the luxury market.

That mood was echoed by Andrea Steiner, senior manager at Bain & Co, who presented the latest Bain-Altagamma Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study. Steiner warned that consumers in 2025 are feeling increasingly alienated, and stressed that reinvention is essential if brands are to stay relevant.

Creativity emerged as a throughline in a panel on global luxury. Harrods' managing director Michael Ward reinforced the sector’s core values, saying, ‘I feel very strongly that creativity and artisan craftsmanship is key to our industry.’ Mulberry CEO Andrea Baldo expanded on that idea, outlining how the heritage brand empowers creativity to ‘influence all brand touchpoints’. Later, artist and designer Yinka Ilori offered a more emotive perspective by positioning creativity as ‘an architect of joy’ rooted in cultural storytelling.

The shifting meaning of luxury was further unpacked in a presentation by The Future Laboratory’s co-founder Chris Sanderson, who presented findings from our New Codes of Luxury macrotrend. He noted a growing convergence between luxury, health and hospitality, themes which were brought to life in a discussion with Dr George Gaitanos of the Chenot Group. Gaitanos shared how Chenot is fusing scientific innovation and precision medicine with high-end hospitality to create wellness programmes that address longevity, resilience and lifestyle optimisation.

Look out for more in-depth coverage of the event in the Luxury sector on LS:N Global, where we will distil key takeaways from the event.

Strategic opportunity

Luxury brands should embed creativity, innovation and purpose across the value chain through cultural storytelling and a hyper-focus on craftsmanship to forge deeper relevance in a world defined by uncertainty

Foresight Friday: Fiona Harkin, director of foresight

AI imagery by The Future Laboratory, UK

Every Friday, we offer an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, director of foresight Fiona Harkin ventures into the ‘foresight zoo’.

: The Trend for Uncertainty – If uncertainty is a virus, then strategic foresight is the best way to inoculate your organisation against it. How? Well, this week I sat down with our co-founder and renowned futurist Martin Raymond to discuss. We know that businesses are struggling to plan for a rapidly shifting near future, let alone a longer-term future. And we also know that traditional trend forecasting models and trend cycles are either broken or being put to the test. The innovation curve is diffusing – and we have to work ahead of it (despite calls for more data and quantifiability).

: Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable – Martin’s stance is that we need to start getting uncomfortable: ‘We have to be more structured, more strategic, sequential – but also set approaches that deliberately test the edges of our zones of familiarity and comfort. You have data collection, you then have your insights that tell me a little bit about what’s going on, then I extrapolate that forward and I get a fairly simple, sanitised solution.’ But from his experience with clients, the formula is far more complex than this. ‘It isn’t something that’s linear and it requires that we proactively model the future. Either we’re passengers or pilots.’

: Know your Foresight Spirit Animal – We may live in no less uncertain times than before, but we are dealing with a fast pace of change. Martin was asked how larger brands can strategise with agility and balance planned budgets if the rate of change is so immediate. His response was typical of the kind of simplifying, cut-through analogy I’ve come to expect from Martin, as he pointed out how we have become far more aware of the unexpected – the so-called black swan events. But what about black elephants? Grey rhinos? And black jellyfish? These are not issues which, once acknowledged, are more relevant for short-term planning; the ones we hope will just go away (Trump); the things that sit around us that seem to be complex and disconnected (Covid, global recession, the manosphere, US right-wing electoral victory). When they come together, it’s like an almighty explosion.

*You can view the conversation here or drop us a message at [email protected] and we’ll send you the full, free-to-access version.

Quote of the Week

‘And if you are a good forecaster, and if you’re looking for the signs and anomalies and patterns, you are seeing these things. The problem is your natural sense is to connect them in a comfortable way or in a way that’s easy to explain to your client, or a way that allows you to develop a fairly guarded middle ground strategy. We shouldn’t be following one practice in forecasting or one process as a forecaster. Like a great musician, you must play four or five different instruments – and you need to apply four or five different methods’

Martin Raymond, co-founder, The Future Laboratory and LS:N Global

Stat: Connected tech boosts loyalty as consumers seek smarter brand interactions

Consumers Connected Experiences Report, US/UK

UK/US – More than a quarter of consumers are willing to pay more for a product that offers a connected experience such as a QR code, visual search, AR or NFC tag, according to Merkle’s 2025 Connected Experiences Research Report.

Familiarity with these technologies is rapidly rising, with 98% recognising QR codes followed by 84% being familiar with visual search. Yet while QR codes lead in usage, other tech such as AR and NFC still show significant untapped potential.

Engagement is growing too: 83% of consumers used at least one type of connected technology in the past month and 32% interacted four or more times. The report highlights that people are most motivated by promotions, product curiosity, rewards and loyalty schemes, convenience and exclusive content.

Connected experiences are also shaping the public’s perception of companies, with 33% saying that brands who use them are more innovative and 25% associating them with being customer focused.

As brands navigate this space, the opportunity lies in reducing friction, building trust and delivering experiences that feel personal, rewarding and seamless.

Read our macrotrend report EQ-Commerce to find out more about the innovative retailers using tech to build empathic, AI-driven experiences adapted to shoppers’ needs, and New Codes of Value to understand the new consumer behaviours and mindsets during times of economic uncertainty.

Strategic opportunity

Shift from transactional to emotionally intelligent touchpoints by using AR, NFC or QR technologies to turn routine moments into brand-building rituals, unlocking storytelling, identity and loyalty through connected, human-centric experiences