Need to know
19 : 10 : 17

New York – Luxury perfumery Le Labo has launched a slimline collection of skin, body and haircare products. Unlike other perfume brands that simply translate their scents into cream form, Le Labo has developed its range around three base scents – hinoki, basil and mandarin – over five years.

The gender-neutral line was created to offer an element of simplicity to people’s bathtime regimes, and includes an all-purpose shampoo, conditioner and body lotion rather than a variety of products aimed at different skin and hair types.

The campaign imagery displays the bottles in an unidealised bathroom setting, with rusty plugholes and marked walls, giving the luxury brand a sense of the everyday. Overwhelmed by choice, consumers are looking for brands to endorse good quality essentials. For more, see our Anti-choice Architecture microtrend.

UK – Fashion brand Jigsaw has released its new autumn/winter 2017 campaign, which focuses on the contributions of immigrants to the fashion industry. Designed by creative agency The Corner, the campaign highlights the cultural diversity that has contributed to the Jigsaw brand throughout the years, from the inaugural Afghan Coat to the 45 nationalities employed across the business. Jigsaw, whose tagline is Beautifully British since 1970, begins the campaign manifesto with the assertion that ‘British style is not 100% British’.

At a time when immigration is proving divisive in the political arena, Jigsaw has taken a stand for what it believes in at the risk of alienating some consumer demographics. For more, see our Backlash Brands macrotrend.

Switzerland – Amaury Hamon, a graphic design student from École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL), has considered the importance of mnemonic techniques in an age when memory is often outsourced to digital devices such as smartphones and computers. The project, Grandmaster Mind, takes the form of a book that teaches the reader how to re-encode mundane data such as lists and numbers into more memorable visual narratives.

The volume has been designed to illustrate the duality between how data is recorded by machines and the way it is interpreted by people as visuals. In the age of The Learning Economy in which people are continually striving for self-improvement, they are looking for ways to extend their learning potential beyond their childhood such as through brain training exercises.

The Global Wellness Institute estimates that in the US about 1.3m potential buyers each year express an interest in wellness communities, demonstrating the value of wellness placemaking. As our recent statistic shows, urban centres are the ideal location for creating such communities. For more, see our Placemaking Market report.