Bleisure

April: Eastpak and Quinze & Milan design utility seats

Iconic rucksack brand Eastpak teams up with furniture design label Quinze & Milan to present upholstered lounge seats at Milan Design Week 2010.

The Built to Resist line combines abstract furniture shapes with the classic characteristics of Eastpak’s zips, handles and fabrics, in colours such as red, black and white. This reference to luggage and travel wear shows the influence of the Bleisure trend on design.

Key Development: Here we see how the merging of work and play is key not just in interiors and hospitality, but in the design of homewares and furniture.

July: Qantas brings Next Generation Check-in to airports

Australian airline Qantas rolls out its Next Generation Check-in experience aimed at on-the-go consumers and their Bleisurite lifestyles.

Instead of waiting in line, travellers on domestic flights can simply touch a Quantas-issued smart card at Quantas kiosks throughout the airport.

The smart chip-enabled cards act as boarding passes at check-in, bag-drop and boarding.

Key Development: The design of the Quantas check-in terminals illustrates the mentality of the time-poor, always-on millennial business traveller.

August: The Quintessentially One sets sail

The Quintessentially One luxury yacht is unveiled. Offering apartments for sale as well as a hotel, the yacht accommodates the Bleisurite lifestyle by providing a business centre and library alongside water sports and other leisure activities.

Key Development: The launch of the Quintessentially One shows that the Bleisure lifestyle is a highly aspirational way to live, rather than something borne of necessity.

January: Luxury Men’s Retail Market

Men continue to receive increased attention from luxury retailers, who create collections and spaces that appeal to both their business and leisure pursuits.

In Singapore, Louis Vuitton’s floating, offshore Maison store includes a dedicated room showcasing the newly launched Made For Travel men’s clothing range. The line, designed specifically for modern travel, reflects the ethos discussed in LS:N Global’s Bleisure trend.

Key Development: The always-on ethos of the Bleisure worker means that travel time is also time to catch up on emails, take conference calls, and scribble notes. Louis Vuitton asserts the aspiration connected to Bleisure.

March: PayPal and Fuseproject create smart, seamless payment system

Design agency Fuseproject creates PayPal Here, a system for electronic payments company PayPal that enables small businesses to take credit and debit card payments easily offline.

Consumers seeking a friction-free life will appreciate the option to pay with a card instead of cash.

Key Development: Cashless payments are the preferred transaction method of the Bleisure worker.

July: Charting the rise of multi-use spaces

Architects Nilsson Pflugfelder create a mobile modular structure that can be reconfigured to become a workspace, artist’s residence, archive or meeting area.

Key Development: Multifunctional spaces which maximise the efficiency of a small area fit appropriately with a Bleisure lifestyle.

July: Bleisure themes spotted at Paris Collections: Men

Designers such as Givenchy and Juun J create hybrid garments that combine tailoring with performance materials. These pieces appeal to men looking for versatile clothes for work and play.

Key Development: Hybrid garments are the sanest choice for Bleisurites who move frictionlessly between scenarios in their busy lives.

November: Software enables companies to pre-empt when workers are likely to leave

The software, called Workday analyses and compares public data with data generated by employees in the workplace. Workday Insight Applications help to identify employees who may be tempted to leave. In turn, the employer can take preventative action.

Key Development: As today’s Bleisure worker becomes more changeable, brands are going to greater lengths to secure and keep the best talent.

November: US Millennials’ show changing attitudes towards company loyalty

The study, commissioned by Elance-oDesk, a platform connecting companies and freelancers and management consulting firm Millennial Branding, reveals that Millennial workers are less loyal to the companies they work for than previous generations, with more than half (58%) expecting to stay in their job for fewer than three years.

Key Development: Millennials have become more flexible and changeable in their attitudes to work since the inception of Bleisure.

March: The modern workplace is now as much about leisure, wellness and hospitality as is it about observation, quantification and efficiency

Since we first observed the rise of Bleisure back in 2009, the boundaries between work and play have dissolved drastically. Employers have been fixated on Millennials for years, but members of this cohort are now in their late 20s or early 30s, and are not the young guns they once were. Take a hint from Generation Z and harness the best of digital technology, but also remember the importance of physical space, serendipity and human emotions.

Key Development: For clues on the future workplace, look towards members of Generation Z, who will soon enter employment and bring a host of strange habits and fresh expectations with them.

May: A collaboration between three US agencies produces a new ratings system for workplace wellness

The Fitwel Rating, designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), General Services Administration (GSA) and the Centre for Active Design (CfAD), offers an intuitive and practical way for employers to improve workplace health and create genuine change through a series of practical guidelines.

Key Development: Employers can assess the health of their workplace to help them create workplaces that inspire and improve wellbeing.

July: Bumble has launched BumbleBizz, a new feature that enables users to search for business contacts nearby

Bumble, a location-based dating app that requires women to make the first move, has expanded to include professional as well as personal contacts.

BumbleBizz users will be able to fill out a new profile that includes details of their education, hobbies and professional experiences, but otherwise the mechanism is exactly the same as on Bumble. Users swipe left or right depending on whether it is a match and, as on Bumble, women will have 24 hours to make the first move.

Key development: As Millennials seek to make more informal social connections, the lines between professional and personal relationships are being blurred.

July: Festivals are emerging that blur the lines between business and leisure

Described as a mix between TED and Burning Man festival, Summit at Sea invites a group of the brightest people in business and culture on a voyage across international waters to various locations around the globe. The first Summit at Sea took attendees to an uninhabited island in the Bahamas, where they heard from speakers including the National Geographic Society’s explorer-in-residence Wade Davis and renowned scientist M Sanjayan, and enjoyed fine dining experiences.

Key Development: With the rise of transformational festivals, consumers want to leave feeling like they have learned something.

August: Media entrepreneur Arianna Huffington steps down from her role at The Huffington Post to launch a workplace wellness organisation

Arianna Huffington is tapping into this trend with her new venture Thrive Global. Having published The Sleep Revolution earlier this year, Huffington has long been an evangelist for issues surrounding workplace burnout, having suffered a high-profile burnout in 2008. The corporate world has traditionally presented sleep deprivation as a mark of success, but Huffington points to research that links it to diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Thrive Global aims to tackle this public health time bomb with training classes, seminars and e-courses based on research from the fields of neuroscience and psychology.

Key Development: Workplaces need to move away from a focus on facilities management and improve their hospitality and wellness offer to attract and retain the best workers.