Need to Know
11 : 03 : 20

Sweden – Swedish Design Museum has launched a virtual exhibition that consists of a backpack filled with Swedish design items.

Created to be a ‘true insider’s guide to Sweden’, members of the public can buy the Sandqvist bags – dubbed Swedish Design Museum To Go – based on choosing north, south, west or east versions of the bag. Each iteration is filled with objects relating to Sweden’s various regions, with personal tips from each bag’s curator. With a focus on encouraging purchasers to venture into its great outdoors, the backpacks feature Sweden-designed blankets, trainers, headphones as well as wood-carving sets.

Jennie Skogsborn Missuna, CEO at Visit Sweden, says: ‘Swedish design is made to be used, not to be put on a pedestal or locked behind glass, and we want our visitors to truly get a chance to experience this when coming to Sweden.’

With consumers continuing to embrace the Elevated Outdoors, they’re looking to brands and organisations that enable new experiences. For more, sign up for our Trend Briefing, where we’ll explore the evolution of experience in the coming decade.

New York – Ora is bringing quick, convenient versions of the ancient wellbeing practice to urban citizens.

Customers can receive 30- or 50-minute express acupuncture services to target their holistic wellbeing, with treatments priced from £38 ($50, €44). Focusing on areas such as pain, sexual health, digestion and emotional health, the services aim to optimise wellness, with additional services such as cupping and gua sha skin massage. It also houses a tea and tonic bar.

Through the space, Ora aims to make acupuncture accessible for consumers from a range of backgrounds, and for those who might not have explored the practice before. ‘The big thing around the space was focusing on acupuncture as an experience. You can come in and have a tea or tonic post-treatment, or if you want to just experience Ora,' explains Kimberly Ross, founder of Ora.

With ancient health and beauty practices merging with Modern Med Spas, Ora is offering consumers the best of both worlds.

US – Dyper is a subscription service that allows parents to return used nappies for more sustainable disposal.

The company has teamed up with TerraCycle to launch its ReDyper initiative, providing bags and specially designed boxes for families that meet UN Hazmat shipping standards. When Dyper boxes are full, parents can download a prepaid shipping label from the TerraCycle website and ship the box to a dedicated processing centre.

With 20bn disposable nappies tossed into household waste in the US annually, this is the first national nappy composting programme to be launched. ‘Diapers are an unavoidable thing... and they are a phenomenal waste stream, so I think it’s important for parents to acknowledge that there’s an issue,' notes Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle.

ReDyper is just one of a series of new innovations in parenting emerging to offer convenient solutions that support the daily demands of raising children, alongside the more sustainable mindsets of Millennial and Generation Z parents.

YouGov has released a study showing that half of British women (48%) think female representation in advertising has become more positive over the past five years. This compares to only 8% who say it has got worse in this time.

British women also report noticing a rise in representation of women from ethnic minority backgrounds in advertising, with nearly two-thirds (65%) saying they’ve noticed an increase since 2015, while only 3% say they’ve seen less. While more women might be present in advertising, according to YouGov just under four in 10 (36%) of females think objectification of women in advertising has decreased. Meanwhile, 48% think it’s unchanged.

Across advertising, the depiction of women, and in particular beauty, remains continually in flux. In response, brands such as Dove are launching campaigns to rewrite the rules of beauty standards and break down global stereotypes.