MOOD

There’s a shift of thinking towards all things biological. Some examples, like the restaurant/club Clinic in Singapore take the elements of a hospital and bring a quite literal translation. That means interior design involving wheelchairs as seats, exam-room lighting and a morgue entrance. Food is served on medicine trays until a certain hour when the spot extends its disco ball from above and becomes a club. But there are also more tounge-in-cheek interpretations; take the Parasite Pals, a toy line of stuffed animals that look like cartoon characters, albeit by the names of Head Lice, Tapeworm and Eyelash Mite. Packaging is a great push, and we’ve seen everything from towels in sterile packaging to pill casings at Flight 001. Heck, Prada even took to the trend and Kid Robot started using vacuum-sealed packs. Even the Container Store is selling giant pill cases for storage. In the fine art world, Justine Cooper created Havidol, a cure-all drug that doesn’t exist but has generated plenty of buzz to the point that people actually started believing that it was real. Another artist is Kawz, who is a graffiti artist turned toy manipulator creating toys like a Mickey Mouse body with a skull and crossbones head.

FASHION

It may be hard to digest, but many a fashion house has jumped on clinical interpretations. Look no further than Chanel, who crafted a charm bracelet complete with metal pills and red crosses with their own logo. Taking it a step further, they’ve also created a dress adorned with pills. The easiest way to interpret the pill craze is on a graphic print. Other tees take on a comical sense with catch phrases like “I’m a liver not a fighter” or a heart saying “I got the beat”. Packaging again could be a direct connection to clinical and Imperial Junkie sets a good example with denim packaged in giant pill cases. Setting a clean sterile appearance, some designers like Bernhard Willhelm have taken on clean-enough-for-the-ER shoes. Tsubo, Puma and Lacostse also tap into shoes that are clinical because they’re clean and in many cases plastic and jelly-like, but not at all intended for the medical profession. Speaking of Puma, world-renowned designer Philippe Stark added his technical yet minimal aesthetic for the Puma Stark Naked collection that looks a lot like sportwear of the future. For the techy-gadget crowd, a cuff has been created that monitors heart rate and looks quite geek chic.