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Dutch Design Week 2025: kidult aesthetics and serious play

The Alluvials by Alice Bucknell. Part of Other Intelligences by MU Hybrid Art House. Photography by Bram Versteeg, The Netherlands

Game-playing Sessions: Our Future Is Somewhere Here by Ål Nik (Alexandra Nikolova), The Netherlands

Dutch Design Week 2025. Photography by Max Kneefel, The Netherlands

The Netherlands – On a rainy day in Eindhoven, the design capital of The Netherlands, artists and designers at Dutch Design Week turned their attention to what makes us human and sets us apart from machines: our ability to play.

At the Do Not Feed the Animals exhibition in the Emma District, designers explored serious topics in a playful format. Sculptures were crafted from unusual materials and the staging was built from cardboard, held together by sticky tape and scribbled on as if built by children. The exhibition was inspired by Italian designer Bruno Munari’s statement that ‘play is a serious matter’. The project aligns with insights from our Human by Design design direction, which explored how human-made design can stand out against a backdrop of flawless, AI-generated imagery.

Elsewhere, artist Marlou Breuls multidisciplinary studio House of Rubber, presented multiple works as part of this year’s Manifestations exhibition. Bruels’ work merges craft, fashion and sculpture to create objects that transform into playful characters, breaking the rule that form follows function.

Play has always been an important method of delivery at Dutch Design Week, used to break down the barriers surrounding serious topics and making them more engaging for the public. This year was no different, with Unfair Play, a gamified conversation starter about closing the health gap, sitting at the heart of Ketelhuisplein. Similarly, Our Future Is Somewhere Here by Ål Nik (Alexandra Nikolova), is a board game that invites players to create future scenarios around climate crisis, migration, technology and care.

Designers also turned to video games to tackle issues such as biodiversity loss and mental health. At the Van Abbemuseum’s Bridging Minds exhibition, Jitze Orij presented Shift Perspective, a video game designed to support people with anxiety disorders. At Other Intelligences, American artist Alice Bucknell speculated a human-less future in her video game The Alluvials, where players inhabit an apocalyptic version of Los Angeles. The game invites players to explore the impact of human activity on vulnerable ecosystems while demonstrating how video games can give people the chance to open their minds to certain issues in the comfort of the digital realm.

Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage of Dutch Design Week 2025.

Strategic opportunity

By embedding games, humour and childlike tactility into serious themes, brands and cultural institutions can foster emotional engagement and collective learning in ways data-driven design cannot

The Future Laboratory presents The Synthocene Era at TheIndustry.fashion summit

Chris Sanderson, co-founder and CEO, The Future Laboratory

UK – At Nobu Hotel in Marylebone, London, TheIndustry.fashion’s Fashion Retail Reset Summit brought together global executives, industry experts and thought leaders from across the fashion sector.

Opening the conference, The Future Laboratory’s co-founder and chief creative officer Christopher Sanderson presented The Synthocene Era macrotrend, which explores how the merging of human and machine intelligence is shaping the future of fashion.

Addressing the rise of spatial computing, Sanderson noted that ‘it is increasingly the connection between the brain and the machine that is driving change’, highlighting that the creation of hybrid environments enrich the fashion experience. ‘Technology isn’t always about the functional,’ he added. ‘It’s about immersing it into more meaningful and emotional experiences for the consumer.’

The presentation outlined how, in The Synthocene Era, fashion evolves from something that decorates the body to something that augments it, and enhances human capability through innovation. As digital spaces grow more emotionally intelligent, they are unlocking new modes of expression beyond physical limits, and enabling wearers to project their mood, aura and identity.

Discover more in our report The Synthocene Era: Merging Human and Machine Intelligence.

Strategic opportunity

Use technology to design immersive, adaptive environments and emotionally attuned products that enrich everyday experiences, enhance connection and augment human capabilities

Foresight Friday: Angus Cross, head of business development

Porsche and Aimé Leon Dore 993 Turbo, France

Every Friday, The Future Laboratory team offers an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, head of business development Angus Cross looks at Aimé Leon Dore and Porsche’s latest collaboration – and what it reveals about the future of brand value in a disrupted industry.

: The perfect pairing: last week, Aimé Leon Dore (ALD) and Porsche dropped the Aimé Leon Dore autumn/winter 2025 Porsche Capsule and, once again, the collection lands squarely at the intersection of heritage and hype. ALD’s campaigns have become cultural case studies – cinematic vignettes featuring sports stars, musicians and actors that blur streetwear with storytelling. I’ll admit it: I was on the ALD landing page at 4pm sharp, ready to fight off the bots and resellers for one of the Porsche caps before they vanished – and for once, I actually managed it. A small but deeply satisfying win.

: Beneath the surface aesthetic lies a deeper story. Europe’s automotive sector is under mounting pressure as Chinese manufacturers expand aggressively, with vehicles that match on quality but undercut on cost. Porsche’s global deliveries are down around 6% this year, with sales in China falling nearly 30%.

: Meanwhile, Europe’s broader car industry is confronting overcapacity – ‘eight factories too many’, as Bloomberg puts it – while Chinese brands including BYD, MG and Zeekr gain ground (as discussed in Six Chinese Brands Redefining Global Expansion). For brands that can’t win on price, the battleground becomes cultural relevance, emotional equity and the stories that keep them aspirational.

: From Bentley’s tie-up with Picante earlier this year to ALD × Porsche, collabs like these are more than marketing – they’re mechanisms for translating legacy into lifestyle. When engineering excellence no longer differentiates, identity does. In the next era of luxury, brand nostalgia isn’t backward-looking: it’s a survival strategy.

Quote of the Week

‘This collaboration is more than just beautifully restored cars – it’s about connecting communities, generations and disciplines’

Robert Ader, CEO, Porsche Germany (source: LinkedIn)

Stat: UK regenerative coffee sales triple as climate pressures mount

Trade Coffee, US

UK – Regenerative coffee sales in the UK have nearly tripled in 2025, signalling a shift toward sustainability in the nation’s £3.6bn ($4.8bn, €4.5bn) coffee market. High-end buyers, such as corporate offices and London’s speciality cafés, are driving demand for eco-certified beans that support soil health and biodiversity as global coffee production faces increasing disruption from extreme climate conditions.

Orders for regenerative coffee rose from 26 to 70 tonnes between 2024 and 2025, and 22 UK roasters are expected to double the amount they order from the next harvest.

The UK coffee market is growing at more than 6% a year – and speciality coffee at over 10% – while regenerative coffee is booming, Bruna Costa from Bossa Coffee Company told The Retail Times. ‘It’s helping offset environmental impact by reintroducing diverse plant species and wildlife to farms, an opportunity to give back to nature.’ Meanwhile, Brazilian coffee cooperative Expocacer, a pioneer in regenerative practices, believes the UK could lead adoption in Europe.

Explore our Future Forecast 2025: Food & Drink Coffee Beyond Beans section to see how innovators are imagining coffee’s future amid growing climate challenges.

Strategic opportunity

Turn regenerative sourcing into a visible brand differentiator. Offer transparency tools that trace the impact of each cup – from soil to sip – and connect consumers to the farms that are restoring biodiversity and building climate resilience