US – Nike is the latest brand to introduce period-proof clothing with the launch of its new product line, Nike Leak Protection: Period. Nike One Shorts will now feature a thin absorbent liner designed to prevent period leaks.

Brands like Thinx previously set a precedent serving people with periods by releasing innovative products such as leak-proof underwear. Nike’s research focused on ensuring the shorts offer more protection to women and other individuals wearing tampons, pads or cups. Its proprietary material technology combines two-layered, laminated pieces of material that absorb, wick and hold the blood.

‘Fear of bleed-through is real – and not just through the teen years, but through the entire journey of menstruation,’ says Lisa Gibson, a senior project manager in Nike’s apparel innovation team. This feeds into our report on Cyclical Fitness, which revealed how women are tracking and synchronising exercise with their menstrual cycles, creating greater demand for intelligent activewear that offers period-related solutions.

US ­– The New Bar, a Los Angeles-based and Latina-owned alcohol-free shop and bar, has been announced as Coachella’s first non-alcoholic retail partner.

Since its launch in July 2022, The New Bar has become a community hub in Venice Beach. The tiny bottle shop and online marketplace carry a range of non-alcoholic spirits, wines, beer and tinned functional drinks. As demand for creative and fun low- and no-alcohol options rises, Coachella has called on The New Bar for a first-of-its-kind retail partnership to keep the desert festival dry. During both weekends of the event, The New Bar will operate two bar pop-ups, stocked with a curated selection of drinks and specialist mocktails inspired by Coachella.

While the category has been rapidly expanding, seeing it available at a major festival is a milestone for alcohol-free beverages. ‘It could change the way people think about non-alc and where it can show up,’ explains the brand’s founder Brianda Gonzalez.

The partnership shows that the drinking ­habits of Generation Z and young Millennials are starting to have a wider impact ­­– expect to see Sober Bars permeate entertainment venues and events.

Global – Deloitte’s Global 2022 Gen Z and Millennial Survey has highlighted significant shifts in attitudes to work among these groups, which we address in our newly launched Work States Futures 2023 report.

Deloitte’s survey reveals that 49% of Gen Z and 45% of Millennials work remotely at least some of the time. Not only that, three quarters say this would be their preferred mode of working.

This reflects the big question organisations are asking themselves at the moment: will we or won’t we? As in, will we all go back to the office full-time, or will TWT days – Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays – become the new in-office days for the majority of their teams? London Business School’s professor of management practice Lynda Gratton explains in her recent book, Redesigning Work, that we need to re-imagine work in terms of place and time: place in terms of whether we are co-located in relation to where we need to work, and time, in terms of whether the work we do requires us to be synchronous (as in collaborative) or asynchronous, as in quiet, or lone-working.

The Work States Futures macrotrend is available now to LS:N Global subscribers and will be available to purchase in The Future Laboratory’s Reports store on 6 July.