In this issue we set the direction of Luxury Studies by including voices from industry and academia. We have had a longstanding relationship with three of the authors you will encounter in this issue. Christopher Berry is a formidable presence in luxury studies and a highly regarded academic and intellectual with a wide range of interests and areas of expertise. He revisits the question of the democratization of luxury, questioning taken-for-granted assumptions in his article. Patrick Mathieu has been invited to write our Foreword. He is both an industry leader who has founded a luxury consultancy in Paris having worked with Hermès and Kering, and a researcher who has written several books and articles on a wide range of topics concerning luxury. Ken Kweku Nimo, our reviews editor from Ghana who currently lives in South Africa combines academic knowledge of luxury with industry insight through his research on fashion and luxury in Africa. He published an article in one of our IPOL special issues of Journal of Design, Business & Society and provides a book review of Sustainable Luxury and Jewelry in this issue.

This issue features an article written by Christopher Berry on the democratization of luxury which will make a significant contribution to the debate around luxury. Our academic contributions from Valeria Iannilli, Vittorio Linfante and Preethi Rajaprakasam represent perspectives from interior design, architecture and curation, fields in which they all practice. Editor Shaun Borstrock has written an article drawn from one of the IPOL podcasts in which he interviewed master watchmaker Roger W. Smith. This article provides us with insight into industry practice and elaborates on the underlying themes in luxury that will be addressed in the IPOL journal.