2 Speed Biking magazine combines fashion and motorcycles
France – A new coffee table magazine, 2 Speed Biking, aims to highlight motorcycle culture from a fresh and glamorous point of view. First imagined by trend forecasters Elodie Marteau and Lou Jacobée as an Instagram account, the project turned into a print publication thanks to the support of Milan-based NSS magazine, which launched it on its online store on 6 March 2023.
Analysing the intersection between the motorbike subculture and fashion, arts and design, Volume 1 aims to 'take the motorcycle outside of motorcycling'. The issue includes colourful style pages dedicated to helmets and an introduction to Japan’s Bōsōzoku bikes. It will retail for £35 ($42, €40).
The glamification of motorcycles isn’t new. In Five Ways Motorcycles Are Bridging Youth Culture, we previously highlighted how the sector is reaching relevance with younger lifestyle-driven audiences by promoting connection, creativity and freedom.
Strategic opportunity
Mobility brands should consider how creative amateurs, especially women, can be part of their marketing or product development to introduce new cultures in-house and align with the values of global Gen Zers and Millennials
Pop Up Grocer opens a permanent location in New York
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.
Strategic opportunity
Take cues from Pop Up Grocer’s bricks-and-mortar retail strategy, which keeps consumers coming back for more by being highly adaptable and responsive to market shifts
Foresight Friday: Isabella Ventura, intern
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.
Quote of the week
‘Queer films, films about minority groups, about our struggles and our triumphs – they deserve to be everything'
Michael Cuby, editor-at-large, Them
Stat: Young people are driving demand for non-English films
UK – A YouGov poll in February 2023 has revealed that more than one in 10 Britons (12%) streamed or downloaded at least one foreign language film in the previous month. Among 18–24-year-olds, the figure was 22%, showing that young viewers are driving interest in non-English content in the UK. Some 12% of them streamed or downloaded at least four such films.
Although non-English language content on Netflix has been growing in popularity since the platform went global (Squid Game, Elite, Lupin), the success of films such as Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front has resulted in a surge in popularity for these titles. Viewing figures for the film tripled after its BAFTA win and Oscar nomination. The film garnered 5.47m hours in viewing time within a week, making it the second most popular non-English film on Netflix. Seven of Netflix’s 10 most popular non-English films premiered in 2022.
This appetite for non-English films reflects the trend of Symbiotic Storytellers, drawing attention to hyper-local and culturally nuanced films made by grassroots production houses and showing film-makers gaining confidence in putting regional stories on the global stage.
Strategic opportunity
The popularity of hyper-local and non-English content shows the need for brands to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach that centres on Western and English-centric content