Need to Know
20 : 11 : 18

New York – Wellness startup WTHN offers acupuncture as a convenient and affordable service in a salon setting.

As alternative medicines become increasingly mainstream, WTHN is demystifying this ancient Chinese practice for a Millennial audience. The salon’s treatment menu uses accessible language to help consumers understand acupuncture’s potential benefits for anxiety, pain relief and skincare. Face Time, for example, promises to reduce wrinkles, calm inflammation and boost collagen.

‘We have a national vision and a very clear target about creating acupuncture for the next generation of wellness consumers,’ says co-founder Michelle Larivee. ‘This is really the next natural frontier of wellness and recovery.’

WTHN’s frictionless online booking, check-in system and membership model also encourage customers to come in for regular treatments, much like they would for a spa or facial. A monthly membership, which entails one treatment a month, costs $75 (£58, €65) while one-off treatments are $85 (£66, €64). For more on the evolution of the spa, read our Modern Med Spas microtrend.

Los Angeles – Sustainable lifestyle and apparel brand Everybody.World is giving Ace Hotel’s discarded sheets another lifetime of use.

Launched by Atelier Ace, the team behind the urban hospitality brand, the Recently Retired collection of travel essentials includes weekend duffle bags, slippers, sleep masks and zip pouches. To create the products, the hotel provided Everybody.World with cotton linens that are usually discarded after a period of use, with the brand repurposing the fabric through dyeing and quilting processes to create new, 100% biodegradable products.

The collection, which is priced for the premium market, is the latest project in an ongoing partnership between the two brands, who share similar eco-conscious values. Previous releases include a line of upcycled towels.

Hotel brands are acknowledging and adapting the historically unsustainable practices of their industry, from the number of discarded bed linens to the amount of waste plastic produced by miniature shampoos.

New York – The museum’s latest exhibition, The Road Ahead: Reimagining Mobility, will feature a selection of installations and design responses that explore the future of urban movement.

Opening on 14^th December 2018 at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, the exhibition will include 40 projects that each address the question: ‘How do people want to live?’. Responses include Arup’s The Sounds of the Future City project, an immersive sound experience that speculates how cities will sound when new technologies, such as automated vehicles, infiltrate the public space.

Alongside this, visitors will learn about Starship’s self-driving delivery robot, Zipline’s autonomous delivery drone, FXCollaborative’s Public Square model for greener, more walkable public spaces, and Local Motors’ autonomous shuttle for people with physical and cognitive disabilities.

Until then, subscribers can learn about the most exciting innovations impacting the mobility sector by exploring our Far Futures vertical.

According to Wellness Summit’s 2018 Global Wellness Trends Report, demand for brain health supplements is increasing year on year. Driving this growth is consumer desire to enhance attention, mood, creativity and motivation. Leading the category, however, are memory-enhancing supplements, with the anticipation that they will continue to drive sector demand in the years ahead.

Demand is also being met by greater access, with online retailers fuelling sales for high-end brain supplements and nootropic ingredients such as Acetyl-L-carnitine, ginkgo, ginseng, bacopa monnieri, DHA and tryptopha. Re-visit our macrotrend The Optimised Self to explore how consumers are biohacking their way to better brains, bodies and wellbeing.