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Mediamatic’s isolation-friendly dinner dates

Serres Séparées photographed by Willem Velthoven for Mediamatic, Amsterdam

Serres Séparées by Willem Velthoven for Mediamatic, Amsterdam. Photography by Anne Lakeman

Amsterdam – Mediamatic has launched an isolation-friendly dining experience on the waterfront near Amsterdam central station.

Designed to abide by social distancing measures, the concept brings together locally sourced food and crafted Amsterdam brews. Allowing couples to experience a romantic dining experience in a private and protective cabin, the Serres Séparées offers both a safe social setting and an intimate opportunity for connection.

As many hospitality spaces plan for their future of service during and after Covid-19, new initiatives are emerging to enable private socialising in outdoor and public settings.

In order to future-proof guest experiences, restaurateurs and hoteliers are being challenged to redesign communal spaces for optimum health and safety. For more, read our opinion piece on the future of hotel design.

On Running’s performance fashion for holistic living

Cloudnova by On Running, Zurich

Zurich – On Running has released a fashion-forward trainer to fit our inter-Covid way of living.

The brand’s first fashion trainer, Cloudnova, has been released at a time when the global crisis is accelerating the trends it taps into. The brand has even pushed forward the release date of the shoe to suit the current landscape and merging of fashion, performance and outdoor living.

‘Performance used to borrow from fashion. Now it’s been the other way around, and we see that in how outdoor gear has been adopted by fashion brands and how almost every brand now has sneakers, because it’s driven by a generation who are blurring the boundaries between work, home, sports, and play,’ explains co-founder David Allemann.

Many affluent consumers are increasingly viewing nature as a form of luxury. Particularly as the lifestyle sector continues to be affected by Covid-19, consumers will be looking for garments that help them enjoy the Elevated Outdoors.

A fitness app for apocalypse survival

London – Apocalypse Survival Training is a new app that allows users to elevate their usual fitness regimes with the exhilaration of working out in an apocalypse.

Created to add more excitement to people’s home-based workouts, the audio fitness adventure app combines gamification and fitness. Allowing users to function as a main character – a super-sleeper agent – the narrative goal is to end an alien invasion of a parallel reality in London. With the story taking place periodically over three types of workout: running, bodyweight circuits and yoga/stretch, the experience is intended to offer functional escapism.

‘When we make exercise escapist by engaging people mentally and emotionally as well as physically, we see much better and long-term physical and mental health outcomes,’ explains Adele Anderson, founder of Apocalypse Survival Training.

With an increasing number of consumers engaging in At-home Fitness, particularly during the lockdown period, people are looking for inventive and engaging ways of staying active.

Apocalypse Survival Training, London

Stat: Chinese consumers embrace local shopping

Charismatic China by TryFu

According to research by Kantar, Chinese consumers are now more in favour of products that have been produced locally than they were before the pandemic.

The study found that localism as a mainstream movement in retail was the most championed by Chinese customers – with 87% expressing this view. Meanwhile, 81% of people in Italy share this view, followed by 76% in South Korea and 73% in Spain.

Already a key factor in sustainability practices, the choice of buying local is also in line with many consumers’ concerns about the safety risks associated with imported products.

As we explore in our recent opinion piece, brands in China are increasingly focusing on championing future-facing and local sustainability practices.