LSN : Daily Signals : Foresight Friday: Olivia Houghton, insights and engagement director

Peachy Den builds a cultural home in Soho

Peachy Den, UK

UK – Womenswear brand Peachy Den is expanding its physical footprint with a second permanent store, in Soho, London.

The new Brewer Street space, designed with architect and creative director Kat Milne, features brushed steel walls, plush curtains, curved metal rails and bespoke red seating that nods to Transport for London design codes. Jelly-like aqua Perspex partitions, sheer turquoise display tables and a ticket booth-style checkout add a playful tactility and are a nod to the aesthetic of the early 2000s.

Conceived as a hybrid environment, the store will host workshops, film nights and activations, alongside exclusive product drops. This reflects Peachy Den’s community-led model, where customer feedback informs design and product development, a strategy we unpacked in our Neo-Community Market.

Founded in 2019 by Isabella Weatherby, Peachy Den began by selling clothes at pop-ups in London and Paris, before putting down roots in Shoreditch and now Soho. More than just stores, these spaces act as community hubs, signalling a broader shift towards retail as a space for culture, connection and co-creation, as explored in The Future Laboratory’s Culture-coded Retail macrotrend report.

Strategic opportunity

How can you use spatial design to move your retail space beyond transactions to inspire exploration, participation and collaboration, turning store visits into immersive brand experiences?

Foresight Friday: Olivia Houghton, insights and engagement director

Every Friday, we offer an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, insights and engagement director, Olivia Houghton explores what AI really means for the talent pipeline and why billionaires buying dinosaur bones might require a protection strategy.

: At SXSW, a panel asked, ‘When AI does the work, what do humans do next?’

Justina Nixon-Saintil, chief impact officer at IBM, argued that in an AI-augmented environment, work won’t stay neatly within job descriptions. AI agents cut across multiple disciplines, meaning people who can operate in various domains will be better placed to manage and collaborate than specialists working in silos. This points to the rise of the generalist.

Beyond this, agility, collaboration, continuous learning and emotional intelligence were framed as more important in an AI-augmented environment. The tech skills are the baseline, but the power skills are the differentiator.

Nixon-Saintil also cautioned against short-termism when hiring. IBM announced it is tripling entry-level recruitment in the US, and argued that when senior people retire, you need junior staff who are already embedded alongside them to absorb the judgment, context and institutional knowledge that no tool can transfer.

Photo by Kristina Kutleša via Pexels

: Elsewhere, we have been tracking how the index of time is filtering into concepts throughout lifestyle sectors, with luxury a key example. In an upcoming report, we explore how the materiality of objects is becoming increasingly important to luxury consumers. This collided with articles I was seeing of billionaires collecting dinosaur artefacts, almost as the ultimate expression of time made physical – objects that are genuinely irreplaceable, scientifically significant and increasingly treated as status assets.

It did make me think that as more pieces enter private hands, less data reaches science, so should there be a protection strategy for objects of time?

Quote of the week

‘Generalists are actually going to become even more important’

Justina Nixon‑Saintil, chief impact officer, IBM

Stat: Second-hand fashion surges as Gen Z and Millennials drive growth

ThredUp, US

Global – Resale marketplace ThredUp’s 14th annual Resale Report reveals that the global resale economy is projected to reach £292.7bn ($393bn, €336.2bn) by 2030, growing twice as fast as the broader apparel market and accounting for around 10% of total apparel spend. In the US, resale outpaced traditional retail growth by nearly four times in 2025 and is on track to reach £58.7bn ($78.8bn, €67.5bn) by 2030.

The report surveyed 3,268 US adults and highlights the role of Gen Z and Millennials, who are expected to drive 71% of market growth up to 2030. Social media now accounts for nearly half of second-hand discoveries, surpassing traditional search and feeding into what The Future Laboratory calls Intimate Selling – smaller, emotionally curated spaces where discovery feels personal and human.

Cost of living pressures are a key driver: 72% of respondents say rising prices impact apparel spending, while 52% of young sellers are attempting to sell more than half their closets. Despite this, demand is beginning to outpace supply, making seamless selling the next challenge for second-hand platforms.

Find out more about the opportunity for your businesses in our Rebranding Resale report.

Strategic opportunity

Make resale effortless for your customers by integrating buy-back, trade-in and authenticated second-hand options to create a circular, community-driven experience that extends engagement and brand value