Need to Know
02 : 07 : 19

London – Humble Pizza is a vegan restaurant inspired by the 1950s Formica cafés of the West End.

Designed by Child Studio, the restaurant references the café culture of London’s King’s Road and the pastel-coloured, Italian-run Formica cafés frequented by writers, artists and bohemians. Offering vegan food including pizzas, salads and soups, the restaurant presents a plant-based alternative to the iconic cafés.

‘We have long been attracted to the cinematic quality of London’s Formica cafés, the duality of Modernist design language and the playful, almost cartoonish spirit,’ say Chieh Huang and Alexey Kostikov, founders of Child Studio. In this vein, the restaurant diverges from the traditional, artisanal design cues associated with veganism and champions a more synthetic, playful aesthetic.

As explored in our design direction Neo-nutrition, food branding is moving away from buzzwords like ‘organic’ and embracing a more surprising visual identity.

Scotland – Larkfire is a brand of canned water aimed at whisky drinkers who prefer water with their Scotch.

The product is to be launched in September as an alternative to both bottled and tap water, whose respective high mineral content and levels of chlorine can affect the aroma and taste of whisky. Sourced from the Outer Hebrides, Larkfire’s wild water is soft and low in mineral content, making it more suitable as a mixer.

‘In Scotland we have a law specifying how whisky should be made, yet we’re willing to dilute this centuries-old craftsmanship by allowing bog-standard tap water to be added to our great drink,’ explains co-founder James McIntosh. ‘We wanted Larkfire to be as close to the perfect water for whisky we could find in the UK and we think we’ve got that.’

Larkfire not only taps into the expanding premium whisky market, but also demonstrates the growing demand for alternative mixers that offer a more premium experience. See our Tonic & Tonic microtrend for more.

US – Razor brand Billie tackles the summer taboo of unshaven bikini lines.

A year after Billie’s disruptive Project Body Hair campaign, which featured women unapologetically embracing their underarm, leg and even toe hair, the brand is extending its message to include pubic hair. Red, White And You Do You is a 4 July campaign that tackles the notion that women in swimsuits must be hairless.

Directed by Ashley Armitage, who is known for her work reclaiming the female gaze, the new film stars women confidently sporting body hair on the beach, redefining the meaning of ‘beach body ready’. The brand continues to frame shaving as a personal choice for women, ‘whether you prefer to be bushy, bare or anything in between’.

With more brands rebranding the act of shaving – and no longer viewing women as an after-thought – natural pubic hair is no longer left out of the body hair conversation.

Updated research from Zenger Folkman shows that women score higher than men in most leadership skills. The data draws from Zenger Folkman’s database of 360-degree reviews rating individual leaders’ overall effectiveness, as well as specific competencies.

The results show that woman are often rated as excelling in taking initiative, acting with resilience, practising self-development and demonstrating integrity and honesty. Despite this, they continue to represent a low percentage of Fortune 500 CEOs, suggesting unconscious bias may be contributing to a continuing lack of women at senior levels.

Explore our Female Futures vertical for more.