At the start of the year, since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been doing what we call our ‘Happiness Futures’ edit, to focus on optimism. This is an edit with a twist. So get comfortable and sink into our latest happiness inducing research, from art in the age of NFTs, Dopamine dressing, emotional clothing, eco-therapy to Mycelium cities.

Let’s hope this year has something good in store for all of us ✨

FASHION | Thinking of happiness-inducing wardrobe to kick off 2022? Perhaps ‘Dopamine Dressing’ helps us make feel better! Harpers Bazaar’s recent article offers insights into the relationship between mood and colour. ‘Enclothed cognition’, is a theory that suggests that how we feel and associate with specific clothes and colours is quite a powerful phenomenon. Instilling colour into our life may produce more joy and make us feel good as fashion psychologist, consultant and founder of website Fashion Is Psychology Shakaila Forbes-Bell explains: “Some research has linked certain styles of clothes with confidence”. Colour therapy, also known as chromotherapy, can be traced back to Ancient Egyptian and Greek times where colours were thoughtfully embedded into the interior and exterior of architectural designs. Forbes-Bell’s advice: “Figure out what you associate with confidence and joy – and wear it”.

EMOTIONAL CLOTHING | Polish Designer, Iga Węglińska, has created an ‘Emotional Clothing Collection’ designed to respond to the wearer’s stress levels. The garments have polysensory technology inserted into the fabric, to allow the wearer to interact with the garment. "The collection is designed to stimulate our sense of taking part and forces us to focus more on our bodies, for example by calming our breath to reduce a stress level" the designer explains. It incorporates the ‘biofeedback’ technique, which is a therapeutic way of encouraging people to understand their bodies with ‘sensors that measure key bodily functions’. Węglińska hopes the garments may aid people who are easily stressed or anxious and instil a sense of calmness and comfort.

2022 GOALS FOR NEXT GEN FASHION DESIGNERS | Less stress more fun! Fashion creatives and students hope to manifest a stress-free and confident year, by producing more artwork in a happy state of mind and putting themselves under less pressure. “The hopes for a more balanced and stress-free life were spread sporadically between an overwhelming amount of “Create more” declarations. [...] There is a comfort in focusing on work and demanding from yourself to put this work out there for the world to see in the name of progress. It seems like that is what young fashion makers crave the most for 2022; to make things and have fun” explains Natassa Stamouli in her article for 1Granary.

COMMUNITY & INDIGENOUS HEALTH | A unique and innovative healthcare service in Western Canada has been launched to provide care to the local community. Turtle Lodge aims to combine traditional Indigenous knowledge with Western medical practices. The healthcare system in Canada is dominated by the western biomedical approach to health and neglects the Indigenous people according to the report. This partnership is significantly effective as it addresses the inequities in health that have ‘arisen from complex historical and contemporary traumas faced by many Indigenous communities’. Previous similar initiatives have a proven track record of success. The Nuka System of Care in Southcentral Alaska found that over a 10-year period, the emergency department reduced by 42% and ‘increased patient and client reports of satisfaction in cultural safety at 94%.’ This approach shows the importance of a diverse conception of health and indigenous-led health partnerships at the community level. They improve access to care, adherence to care plans and data shows they insure better health outcomes.

ECO THERAPY | Let’s recover with nature! Connecting with nature has been proven to be highly beneficial for psychological and mental wellbeing, and the production of killer cells (the cells that fight cancerous cells). A proposal for an ‘environmentally sensitive’ Eco-Therapy Wellness Park near Auchinleck in East Ayrshire Scotland, is currently being developed by a joint venture company between National Pride UK Community Interest Company, IntroCrowd and The Barony Eco-Therapy Wellness Park. Once consented, this will be a non-exclusive health and wellness destination to provide people with mental relaxation facilities, where visitors can expect a spa, exercise facility, craft activities as well as a healthy eating dining experience. Visitors will be able to reap the benefits of being surrounded by nature, to develop their mental and physical resilience through a mind, body, and soul experience. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2024 if it is fully approved and points to an increase in spaces harnessing the power of nature also seeing an uptick in urban planning.

NATURE AS THE DESIGN INFLUENCER | Italian manufacturer Fast, creates nature-inspired outdoor furniture, with a respect for natural surroundings as a founding value of their design method. The brand embraces ‘nature’s bounty’ and is committed to preserve the environment by immersing itself in the principles and intelligence of nature. This is a slow approach to manufacturing, as the brand uses 100% recycled aluminium, and in most cases, previously recycled from scrap. All material and component sourcing is local, meaning the brand boasts zero carbon miles involved in the production of its collection. 'For each phase, from the cutting of the profiles to the sandblasting to the painting, we carefully monitor electric-, water- and thermal consumption, and waste production'. In nature, there is no waste and this approach onto itself, mimics nature’s systems.

NEWS | This week we celebrate the late iconic fashion designer Thierry Mugler who dominated high fashion womenswear with his ‘cyborgian warrior’ aesthetic, both theatrical, spectacular and erotic. With the rise of the supermodel in the 90s, Mugler celebrated women who resembled ‘alien femme fatales’. Musicians harnessed goddess-like features of his designs for music with his designs worn by Bowie, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, supermodels in Geroge Michael videos, His understanding of ‘the human body as something malleable and worthy of metamorphosis’ was admired and to this day worshipped by celebrities. In Mugler’s own words: “I dreamt of creating another world, to my scale. One that was my own.”

BIOMATERIALS & URBAN DEVELOPMENT | Who knew robots and fungi could co-exist with one another to transform cities? The Biological Laboratory of Architecture and Sensitive Technology, aim to explore and develop ‘how nature and technology’ can infuse together to transform cities through the use of living organisms and discarded materials, by turning them into innovative artefacts and architecture. This architectural creation was formulated at Blast Studio; founded by Paola Garnousset, Martin Detoeuf and Pierre de Pingon, who were fascinated by nature and how we could create a new ecosystem in the city by utilising Mycelium in the recycling process. After all, “There is no such thing as waste in nature. The trash of an organism becomes the resource of another one, this ecosystem makes every forest constantly retransformed”

MARINE LIFE PRESERVATION | Scuba divers along the coast of Tahiti have discovered a massive pristine work of art lurking on the coral reefs. Despite the coral bleaching events within the area, the structured rose-shaped corals have remained intact and hidden off the coast of Tahiti. ‘It was magical to witness giant, beautiful rose corals which stretch for as far as the eye can see’ Alexis Rosenfeld, an underwater photographer and founder of the Ocean project. Deeper reefs may be better protected from the threats of plastic, chemical pollution, overfishing and coral bleaching. This discovery is inspirational and gives us hope for future conservation efforts of coral reefs, which play an important role in the survival of our marine eco systems as well as our entire planetary balance.

PLASTIC POLLUTION AWARENESS | Playing tennis on the Great Barrier Reef to raise awareness about plastic polluting our oceans. This is what Adidas and Parley managed to do by creating a floating tennis court on Australia’s Great Barrier reef. The tennis court is predominately made up of recycled plastic materials. The event was also part of the launch of a high-performance apparel range made in part with Parley ocean plastic. '“We collect plastic from coastal communities before it ends up in the oceans and turn it into yarn,” said Shannon Morgan, senior director of the pacific section at Adidas. Adidas aims to end plastic waste and eliminate virgin polyester from their products by 2025. The brand has been working with Parley since 2015, which produces recycled clothing and footwear made up of recycled plastic pulled from the oceans. Perhaps not the only solution, but one that has great potential in turning waste into new materials and is also featured at the Design museum exhibition ‘Waste Age’.

ART, VOICE, OWNERSHIP & THE METAVERSE | You can now own a Voice gem NFT (sculptural sound bytes) on OpenSea, the world's first and largest NFT marketplace. You can also visit the work exhibited at the META MUSEUM exhibiting Voice Generated 'Blossom' Voice Gem by @reepsone Reeps100 (Harry Yeff) and Trung Bao @tbaocreate. Voice Gems are virtual sculptures which share soundbites of leading voices, in a bid to explore vocal phenomena and technology that is generated from either AI-generated voices, languages becoming extinct, anonymous sources, and even the voices of critically endangered species.  In addition to the understanding of new opportunities for artists, Harry Yeff’s work is embedded with counteracting environmental depletion and human conflict. In 2019 he created the world’s first digital sculpture generated from the voices of two lovers, used as a marriage proposal gift, instead of the traditional diamond gemstone and offering a viable alternative to a historically unsustainable industry.  During Art Basel Miami 2021 Harry Yeff and Trung Bao showed Voice Gem #1042, to capture Kenny Shachter’s ‘NFTism’ philosophy, a term he coined in 2021. “NFTism doesn’t necessarily disrupt anything but rather presents a market alternative to the traditional gallery system. In the process, it ushered in an unexpected audience of crypto collectors, empowered a whole new generation of artists with easy access to that audience, and instilled the (potential) windfall of a 10 percent resale residual to NFT artists in perpetuity.” 

LIFE & EARTH CONSCIOUSNESS | ‘How to develop a better planetary consciousness?’ In his interview with Philosopher Achille Mbembe for Noema, Nils Gilman discusses the connection between life and earth, and how one cannot exist without the other. Mbembe argues democracy as a system itself will have to be reinvented as the planetary crises has no borders, therefore “we need a new generation of rights that do not depend on the nation-state.” ‘Planetary’ evokes an endless process of constant transformation in other words “to foster a new consciousness that gives ample space to notions of bio-symbiosis — life in symbiosis with humans and nonhumans?”.