UK – Brown’s Hotel in London’s Mayfair has unveiled a new, entirely shoppable Sir Paul Smith Suite featuring a range of furniture, artworks and soft furnishings from the new Paul Smith home collection. Brown’s Hotel is a part of the Rocco Forte Hotels group and the suite was created in collaboration with its design director, Olga Polizzi, with the aim of offering guests a creatively inspirational stay.

Renowned designer Smith designed the space himself while drawing on the hotel’s history as the residence of notable literary guests including Rudyard Kipling, who completed The Jungle Book there in 1894. The suite features customised and vintage furniture, hand-picked art and a small library of design books selected by Smith himself. Sofas, tables and leather goods from his Everyday Life collection, as well as rugs, lamps and photographic prints can all be purchased. ‘I’m so pleased we’ve been able to include objects that inspire me personally and I hope, in turn, they’ll inspire the suite’s guests,’ says the designer.

But what price is inspiration? A stay at the Paul Smith Suite is priced from £5,500 ($6,776, €6,255), meaning this particular branded hospitality experience is targeted at a luxury guest. Nevertheless, this collaborative process shows how the hospitality sector’s post-pandemic comeback involves innovation – particularly through brand collaborations – a strategy we’ve explored in our report on how Hotels are the New Frontiers for Brands.

UK – Black-owned creative agency A Vibe Called Tech has teamed up with WePresent to explore the past, present and future of the Black experience in the metaverse through an artistic reflection by Afro-Hungarian artist Huntrezz Janos.

Janos will create four avatars symbolising who she would like to see in the metaverse. She is best known for creating augmented and virtual realities that transgress the oppressions of the physical world in relation to diversity and inclusion. Some of the characters to be created include a jewellery-laden basketball player – the digiballer – who stands for Black trans visibility, as well as a virtual therapist who works with patients in an ‘infinite zen garden’ where they meditate on clouds.

A Vibe Called Tech has also commissioned an essay by Williesha Morris on the issues facing the Black community in the metaverse, which include appropriation, misuse and financial discrimination. The essay will be accompanied by an illustration by digital artist Serwah Attafuah. As the metaverse continues to grow – a recent Bloomberg report estimates that companies will invest more than £650bn ($800bn, €738bn) in it by 2024 – questions about ethics and community bear more urgency. Adopting a people-first approach is important, as revealed in our Betterverse report.

Global – A new survey by Catalyst highlights how colourism and hair texturism affect women of colour in the workplace, and shows that those with darker skin and curlier hair face more discrimination.

After interviewing 2,734 women from different marginalised racial and ethnic groups in Australia, Canada, South Africa, the UK and the US, researchers concluded that 51% of respondents had experienced racism in their current workplace. The report found that women with darker skin tones (colourism), those with more Afro-textured hair (texturism), trans women and queer women are disproportionately targeted with racism at work. ‘My hair was in an Afro and my co-worker, a white male, was saying I should be clean and do my hair,’ said one of the Black women surveyed.

In our Identities Series, we track new directions in diversity, inclusion and women’s futures, among others. As Black women employees aren’t a monolith, this report by Catalyst should prompt employers to rethink how they can become better allies.