Need to Know
01 : 07 : 19

New York – The fashion blog has launched Repeller, an e-commerce site powered by gamification.

Customers hoping to buy an item from Repeller’s debut collection of accessories can navigate an interactive digital platform, which asks them to choose what type of shopping experience they want. Those who select Play are guided through a sensorial digital playground with shoppable products, the Shop side of the website is a more traditional e-commerce platform.

For those who wish to play, interactive elements include being asked to enter an adjective and two nouns, as well as read a short essay with words hyperlinked to products. ‘Although it's very non-traditional, we find that the consumer is enjoying the discovery process and is smart enough to figure it out without explicit instruction or experience architecture that traditional UX would implement,’ Dasha Faires, director of product development at Repeller, tells LS:N Global.

While brands are increasingly creating experiential bricks-and-mortar emporiums to elevate their physical retail offer, e-commerce sites like Repeller are replicating this experience with Digital Store Fronts.

London – The Department for Inclusive Education (DflE) was created to improve LGBT+ sex education in secondary schools.

In September 2019, the Department for Education is introducing compulsory relationships education for primary pupils and sex education for secondary pupils, which omits the sexual practices of the LGBT+ community. To address this, Central Saint Martins graduate Jack Newbury created DflE, a design organisation to integrate equality within sex education.

The proposed kit for secondary schools includes materials and resources to facilitate the teaching of topics such as pleasure, gender, identity, consent and body image. By providing this breadth of knowledge, the kit enables sex ed to become more inclusive of all communities and genders, rather than subscribing to a heteronormative approach.

As explored in our microtrend Sex Re-education, school curriculums are desperately lacking in LGBT+ sex ed, leading young people to seek knowledge from social media platforms.

Global – Our latest consumer tribe are slowing down to carve out a new rhythm in their daily lives.

The pace of modern life has become unsustainable, so much so that the World Health Organization (WHO) has now officially recognised burnout as an occupational phenomenon. As a result, this tribe of Conscious Decelerators are fighting back against the quick fixes and fads that proliferate in the mainstream wellness industry by making more traditional wellbeing pursuits fit for purpose in the modern day.

Our tribe members are Resham Daswani, who lives in Hong Kong and uses Cha Dao – or the Way of Tea – to counteract the pressure of living in the world’s fifth-most stressful city. London-based Richie Bostock practises breath work as a way to fight against our learned ‘fight or flight’ behaviour. Our third Conscious Decelerator is Katy Bowman, a bio-mechanist from Sequim in Washington State, who incorporates natural movement into everyday life as a way of overcoming the guilt associated with exercising.

Meet The Conscious Decelerators here.

Today’s older consumers are spending more than Millennials, according to a new analysis by Resolution Foundation. The UK study found that pensioners now spend about £390 ($485, €428.50) on average per week on items other than housing, rising from just £105 ($130, €115) in 2002. Meanwhile, those under 30 spend £380 ($472, €417.50) per week on non-housing items, £28 ($35, €31) less than they spent in 2002.

Baby Boomers are not necessarily spending this extra cash on essentials. The study found that those aged 65 and over are spending an extra £42 ($52, €46) a week on fun goods and activities such as going to the cinema, eating out and streaming music. This attitude extends to alcohol and tobacco products, with spending up £2 ($2.50, €2.20) a week to £11 ($14, €12).

As more Baby Boomers identify as Flat Agers and partake in leisure activities associated with younger generations, brands must eradicate stereotypes around ageing.