Editor’s letter: why we’re becoming HTSI

You may notice a little change this week about our masthead. For the first time we’re appearing not as How To Spend It on the cover but simply as HTSI. Over the course of our 28-year existence, the title How To Spend It has always been one we have used with pride. The magazine has tried to promote a slightly escapist lifestyle and embodied, I hope, the best ways in which to spend one’s time. We have always encouraged readers to interpret the “spend” as less transactional in its meaning. But it is clear that the irony with which the title was first conceived has sometimes failed to land. Times have also changed: we have lived through two years of a global health catastrophe. We are in the midst of a cost of living crisis. We have been publishing issue after issue against the backdrop of war in Ukraine. We want everyone to feel that the magazine offers something life-affirming, enriching and diverting. And so we have evolved.

From this weekend, we will publish as HTSI magazine. We will offer new interpretations of the “s”; while still using our brand name with our content, we will also draw on other “s” words to illustrate the breadth of things we do. This week’s cover story, which could be called “How to style it”, is shot by Bibi Borthwick and offers a fresh look at this season’s menswear that is typically elegant – and well hewn. Inside features offer thoughts on how to savour it, how to sell it and how to save it. There are thoughts on how to see, serve and even swim it, too. 

We want everyone to feel the magazine offers something life‑affirming and enriching

Admittedly, an acronym doesn’t immediately roll off the tongue. But we feel that in time it will be as familiar to you as it is to us (who have always called it HTSI around the office) because you will find the same stories, escapes and style adventures that you have always loved. How To Spend It has always been about how we spend our time, and our content embraces everything that is good in life. We make optimism, pleasure and beauty a focus in a world where such things can be hard to find. And we are a little hedonistic – HTSI has never been, and never will be, one for the hair shirts. We have no plans to change our essential being; we just want HTSI to reflect the deeper sensitivities and priorities of a changing world. 

@jellison22