Need to Know
13 : 08 : 18

New York – Eckhaus Latta: Possessed is the Whitney Museum of Art’s first fashion exhibition in 21 years.

The fashion design duo, who are known for their experimental and youthful approach to luxury, are using the exhibition to show fashion as a contemporary art and a means to explore desire and consumption. To do this, the designers created a three-part experience: zone one is a gallery that displays iconic advertising campaigns, while zone two is a fully functioning store, complete with a fitting room and cashier, containing exclusive pieces by Eckhaus Latta and contributing artists.

Zone three resembles an unseen part of the shopping experience – the store’s CCTV footage. By allowing visitors to observe footage from the designers’ Los Angeles store and a livestream of the exhibition itself, Eckhaus Latta is satisfying shoppers’ voyeuristic tendencies.

By going beyond their specialisms and entering the world of contemporary art, fashion designers are taking a pivotal role in curating culture. In 2017, JW Anderson opened a multidisciplinary exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield.

London – Glow Bar is the newest self-care space to open on Mortimer Street, an area that is gaining a reputation as a wellness hub.

The space focuses on infrared saunas, featuring private sauna pods that can be booked for up to 45 minutes. The concept is relatively new to London, having taken off in New York and Los Angeles, and is said to alleviate joint pain and yield glowing skin, more energy and a stronger immune system.

Glow Bar also offers a superfood café and a natural beauty store, which is split into four sections: Inner Beauty, which offers supplements; Outer Beauty, which focuses on clean beauty products; Everyday Beauty, which features more basic wellness items and Intimate Beauty, offering sexual health products.

As explored in our microtrend The Modern Apothecary, the next generation of wellness brands are imagining a more health-orientated high street.

UK – bwin, an online casino, has released a new campaign that takes a more cinematic approach to gaming advertising.

Created by BBH Sport, the advert is shot entirely in reverse, playing on the glamorous stereotypes of the traditional casino, before revealing that the player is gambling online on his phone. The campaign marks a departure from the typically brash marketing that online gambling brands often resort to.

Millennials are eschewing physical casinos in favour of online gambling. According to a YouGov study in the US, 47% of 18–34-year-olds find casinos depressing, and half agree that online gambling should be legal. For more on how gambling is being rebranded, read our microtrend The New Casino.

According to Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser, Google and Google-owned YouTube and Waze combined to account for more than a third of time on digital media in the US in June 2018. Unsurprisingly, use of Facebook, including its Messenger app, is declining faster than ever. In the same period, usage of the social media platform fell 10%.

With Google becoming increasingly integral to our day-to-day lives, the notion of mega-systems and their control on our existence is more pertinent than ever.