Need to Know
17 : 03 : 23

US – Pop Up Grocer has been a destination on wheels for food enthusiasts, influencers and retail buyers to discover emerging brands since 2019. Now, the retailer is settling down with a permanent location in New York.

Specialising in up-and-coming brands, trendy snacks and innovative flavours, Pop Up Grocer also commits to responsibly made, visibly appealing and often Instagram-famous products. Organised in categories like Puffs + Crunch, Bites + Chews or Breakfast-ish. the 1,500-square-feet space will change its product catalogue quarterly to keep up with fast-evolving food trends. An in-store café serves Emma Chamberlain's coffee and bites from a local women-owned Bahraini bakery.

‘Our challenge will just be to reframe pop-up. It’s not so much about where we are, but just that we’re continuously providing something that is new and fresh and to be discovered. The products pop up. We stick around,’ explains founder Emily Schildt.

This flexible approach to food retail, supporting emerging direct-to-consumer brands and responsive to social media trends, lays the foundations for the supermarkets of tomorrow.

The Future Laboratory team offers an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, LS:N Global’s intern Isabella Ventura discusses the Oscars, fashion week and capybara affirmations.

Gen Z are definitely leaving the house to shop at Heaven by Marc Jacobs, a fluorescent time portal to the early 2000s in London. Find their next hotspot on Step. The emerging map platform compiles travel recommendations from Gen Z influencers and bloggers.

A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once not only made history at the Oscars, but the film is also the most-awarded of all time, according to IGN’s calculations. This historical win for Asian representation and LGBTQ+ storylines also enjoyed commercial success, grossing £88m ($107m, €101m) worldwide.

Between Jennifer Coolidge becoming a pop culture icon and 1990s supermodel Devon Aoki making her debut as the new face of Acne Studios, mature women are gaining the media recognition they deserve.

As fashion month wraps up, everything ultra-mini was the main takeaway. From Miu Miu’s micro-pants to Ann Demeulemeester’s barely-there bandeaux, where is the body inclusivity we were promised? Well, look at the cover of the latest issue of British Vogue featuring Paloma Elsesser, Precious Lee And Jill Kortleve.

End your week with a new kind of Instagram motivational guru. Capybara Affirmations is turning the cutest rodents into cheesy therapists.