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Colour and texture elevate French hotel interior

5ROOMS by Studio Quetzal, France

5ROOMS by Zanellato/Bortotto, France

France – The historic French hotel Moulin des Ribes has commissioned local designers to update five of its rooms, drawing inspiration from the traditions of surrounding regions.

Artists and studios including Joachim Jirou-Najou, Studio Quetzal and Zanellato / Bortotto took part in the 5Rooms project, each demonstrating a different approach to creativity using traditional materials and techniques.

‘For this project, we delved into the nostalgic overtones of the Provence region’, explains Louise Naegelen, co-designer at Studio Quetzal. ‘Inspiration came from our memories of scents, light and weathered materials.’ The artists transformed their room with terracotta brick from Salernes, a town in the nearby Var region. Elsewhere, Zanellato / Bortotto decorated the walls with bright ceramics. ‘The traditional gathering of flowers in the hills of Grasse, with its warm palette of colours, give rise to the glazed, diamond-shape tiles covering portions of the floors and walls,’ explain the studio’s founders Giorgia Zanellato and Daniele Bortotto.

Sanity & Self app supports women’s wellbeing

Sanity & Self app by Moov

US – Created by the founders of digital fitness coach Moov, Sanity & Self is a new meditation app dedicated to women and mothers.

Building on its female founders’ personal experience of motherhood and marriage, Sanity & Self aims to be a destination for women to explore self-care. The in-app sections are led by female experts, and each is categorised according to user’s mood. Treat Yo’self features at-home beauty treatments and advice, while Energize provides exercise programmes ranging from two to 45 minutes.

‘The old model of self-care is broken. A SoulCycle class, a 30-minute meditation at a studio, a one-hour facial – all these activities are time-consuming, expensive and fail to help everyday women,’ explains Meng Li, co-founder and CEO of Sanity & Self. ‘[The app] works to solve this problem by helping women take just a few minutes out of their day for themselves with guided sessions in fitness, wellness, body, mindfulness, personal growth, sleep and more.’

For more on how the health and wellness market is developing, look out for our upcoming macrotrend, launching soon here.

A blockchain platform for sports fandom

USA – Unblockable is a new platform that enables fans to buy, exchange and sell digital tokens that are tied to pro-athletes.

As a digital spin on classic sports collectibles, the new cypto-tokens allow fans to build a virtual collection of their best and favourite stars. The value of each token varies depending on the player’s performance on the field.

‘Taking advantage of the unique characteristics of the emerging blockchain platform, Unblockable is defining a new category of fun, engaging and approachable experiences and games for consumers, as well as new ways for stars, athletes and leagues to build new relationships with fans,’ explains Jacob Mullins, an partner at Shasta Ventures and investor inthe platform.

In our Crypto-loyalty microtrend, we explore the rise of digital currencies as tokens of reward and loyalty. Unblockable presents an opportunity for crypto systems to move beyond retail and into the realm of hobbies and collectibles.

Unblockable

Luxury champagne for space travellers

Mumm Grand Cordon Stellar Project by G.H. Mumm

Global – G.H. Mumm has developed a bottle and glass concept that facilitates champagne drinking in a zero-gravity environment.

The products have been created in collaboration with Spade, an emerging agency specialising in space design. The high-tech bottle design uses the champagne’s gas to release the drink in the form of bubbles, with the floating droplets hovering in the air until gathered up in the specially-designed glass.

With the launch of the world’s first commercial space station due in 2020, the concept of luxury space travel is fast becoming a reality. ‘For the last 40 years, space travel has been shaped by engineers rather than designers. Instead of seeing zero gravity as a problem to be solved, we look at it as a design possibility’, says Octave de Gaulle, founder of Spade.

Luxury consumers failing to spot fakes

With the global counterfeit goods market worth more than £331.8bn ($450bn, €375bn, source: OECD), the presence of fake goods on resale marketplaces could be set to rise. However, consumers are still struggling to identify the difference between real and fake goods. In a recent survey by customer data platform Red Point, 60% of online watch buyers said that they are somewhat confident in identifying fakes. After being shown pictures of fake watches previously sold online, 42% were no longer positive in their abilities.

In a bid to tackle counterfeit watch sales, luxury goods company Richemont recently acquired second-hand watch retailer Watchfinder, in turn boosting trust in the authenticity of pre-owned watch sales.

Thought-starter: Can AI drive more mindful fashion purchases?

Hasna Kourda, co-founder of the Save Your Wardrobe app, explains why digitising our wardrobes will streamline consumption and help brands to hyper-personalise products.

Save Your Wardrobe is a wardrobe management app that creates an online inventory of your clothing. The app scans your emails and online retail accounts to find your latest online purchases, and users can also upload photos to store in their digital wardrobe.This information can be synchronised with an individual’s diary and shopping habits, and through machine learning, the app will suggest pairings and outfit ideas.

‘Through a curated eco-system of services, we want consumers to wear everything that they already own by finding ways to upcycle and extend the life of garments. By providing users with a breakdown of their wardrobe and how it's performing, it will show what is being worn repeatedly, and what is not. The app will show how much these items are worth and offer practical insights, such as the option to resell or donate them to charity’, says Hasna Kourda.

‘We don’t want to stop people shopping. It's important to the economy and it makes people feel part of a community. But we do want to enhance it and ensure that when you shop, you know what you need and select something that will be a long-term purchase.’

Read the full interview here.