LSN : News : ISTO promotes slow fashion through tourism

Canesten develops a vulva education platform

The Truth, Undressed by Canesten, UK

UK – While idealised images of women’s bodies abound online, anatomically accurate depictions of vulvas are scarce. Tackling this issue, intimate health brand Canesten has launched the The Truth, Undressed, an educational platform intended to dispel common misconceptions and empower women and girls aged 11–18 to learn more about their genitalia.

The platform is part of the company’s Vagina Academy, an ongoing initiative to educate consumers about vulval and vaginal anatomy and health. To dispel the harmful notion that all vulvas look the same, the platform includes a library of images celebrating the anatomical diversity that can exist among women. The platform also focuses on vaginal health and offers educational resources about infections. 'We live in a world where porn is readily available on the internet, yet many young people don’t know the first thing about what kinds of infections there are or even what the vulva is supposed to look like,’ explains Daria Costantini, brand lead for Canesten.

Encouraging people to control of their sexual health and wellbeing, the initiative is part of the Sex Re-Education movement in which young people are seeking more realistic and inclusive perspectives.

Strategic opportunity

How can companies prompt conversations about vulval health? Consider using the word ‘vulva’ openly and directly on packaging or in a campaign to remove stigma and sexual connotations

ISTO promotes slow fashion through tourism

Factourism by ISTO

Portugal – The sustainable fashion brand is taking inspiration from food and wine tours to promote its eco-conscious practices. Through its Factourism concept, the brand is positioning its factories as tourist destinations, where people can learn about the process of how organic clothes are made. The first tour is set to follow the journey of a white cotton T-shirt, starting with the weaving of the fabric and ending with the sewing-in of the label, and the brand plans to eventually offer hosted visits and guided tours across its factories.

While the brand is known for its ethical production and product transparency – with each price tag including a full price breakdown of the item’s cost – ISTO’s Factourism concept aims to solidify its claims in an accessible and tangible way. ‘We want to demonstrate that everything we tell [you] is true,’ says Pedro Palha, partner at ISTO. ‘That it really is made [sustainably] in Portugal.’

The launch of the new initiative heralds the brand showcasing an approach to open-source sustainability that provides material insight and education for its customers.

Strategic opportunity

Beyond fashion, brands across sectors should invite customers to discover their sustainable processes as a way of building trust and loyalty in a confusing landscape

Regenerative eating arrives at the Serpentine gallery

London – As part of the museum’s Back to Earth programme, the Serpentine Gallery has enlisted culinary art collective Cooking Sections to re-imagine the menu of its restaurant, The Magazine. The menu now includes three dishes that showcase the potential for adaptive and ecologically conscious food systems to target the climate crisis.

The three dishes – designed in collaboration with chef Tomas Kolkus and British catering company Benugo – are prepared with ingredients grown using regenerative practices, such as vegetables that enhance soil quality. British chickpea and spinach hummus on YQ bread and bonfire potatoes with seaweed butter are among the new menu offerings. ‘YQ’ stands for Yield Quality flour, which is flour that has been cultivated from fields with individual plants that are genetically unique instead of more common, industrial monocultures.

With plans to introduce its Climate-Positive approach to cultural institutions across the UK, Cooking Sections is aiming to transform the restaurant into a site for regenerative eating and healing. ‘It’s about setting the framework under which chefs, cooks, anyone, can develop to their own needs and scale,’ explains Alon Schwabe, co-founder of Cooking Sections.

The Magazine restaurant at Serpentine North Gallery, London

Strategic opportunity

Food companies should consider collaborating with collectives like Cooking Sections to create products that have been made using regenerative principles

Stat: India is on track to being the most populous country

Photography by Yogendra Singh, India

While China has led the way in recent years with its vast population of 1.4bn, India is set to take over as the world’s most populous country in 2023, according to research by the UN. These figures come as China experiences one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, at 1.15 children per woman.

More generally, the UN also notes that, by November 2022, the planet will be home to 8bn people. But this growth is happening unevenly, with more than half of the world’s population increase in the next 30 years set to happen in just eight countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.

With the world’s population in a state of flux, young people are set to drastically redefine the state of society. Already in India, the influx of Generation Zalpha is leading to new models of progress.

Strategic opportunity

With eight countries on track to experience significant population growth in the next 30 years, there is an opportunity for brands and organisations to create youth-focused programmes that nurture these new generations