Japan’s ban on married couples having different surnames has prompted an event to highlight people’s reluctance to change their name
At the very least, the three men and three women calming their nerves on a Friday evening at a venue in Tokyo know they have one thing in common.
Spaced out across booths, they will soon be placed in pairs and given 15 minutes to get to know one another.
Continue reading...Influencers and athletes are among those claiming substances can help with injury repair, weight loss and angi-ageing
From influencers to athletes, high-profile figures are hailing peptides as the route to wellness, claiming they help with injury repair, weight loss, anti-ageing and mood. We take a look at what these substances are, and the murky industry surrounding them.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds several clinics making potentially unlawful claims about benefits of unregulated therapies
The medicines regulator is investigating whether UK clinics are breaking the law by making claims about the benefits of unregulated, experimental peptide therapies, the Guardian can reveal.
Interest in experimental peptides has boomed in recent years. The substances are delivered by injection and are touted by sellers, influencers and even some medics as aiding everything from anti-ageing to recovery from injury.
Continue reading...Lack of regulation for specialist classes leaves UK fitness enthusiasts at risk, say professional bodies
The boom in reformer pilates has created a “wild west” of studios where poor regulation has resulted in inexperienced teachers and a rise in injuries, professional standards bodies have warned.
Pilates is not formally or legally regulated, and as its popularity has surged, industry experts say, so too has the growth of packed reformer-based classes often led by instructors with limited training.
Continue reading...Once-hyped, celebrity-backed company snapped up by American Exchange Group for fraction of former value
Allbirds, the San Francisco sustainable trainer brand once valued at more than $4bn, is being sold for just $39m (£29.6m) after global demand for its wool-based footwear failed to materialise.
American Exchange Group, the owner of a string of brands including the fashion label Ed Hardy and the accessories maker Born, is snapping up the struggling company once touted as the future of footwear.
Continue reading...Survey also found 65% of gen Z think ‘things are better if men do paid work and women do care work’
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Younger fathers are more likely to cling to outdated ideas that frame men as the money earners and women as caregivers, new research has found.
The Australian State of the World’s Fathers report is based on a global survey of 8,000 parents, with 533 from Australia.
Continue reading...Model posted pictures of herself naked and ‘in her full power’ to celebrate Mother’s Day, before Meta took them down for breaching nudity guidelines
The model Erin O’Connor has spoken out about the need for social media platforms to apply “clearer, more context-sensitive guidelines” after Instagram repeatedly removed two nude photographs she had posted on Mother’s Day, celebrating her heavily pregnant body.
The photos – which were removed, reinstated and then removed again by the platform – were taken in 2014 when O’Connor, who is 48, was eight and half months’ pregnant with her son Albert.
Continue reading...School dinners have suffered at the hands of politics and economics for almost 50 years
Almost a generation has passed since Jamie Oliver’s four-part Channel 4 documentary series Jamie’s School Dinners exposed the unhealthy reality of the food served to pupils at lunchtime, including – notoriously – fat-heavy, meat-light Turkey Twizzlers. It proved a shaming and effective intervention. His ensuing Feed Me Better campaign led the then prime minister, Tony Blair, to pledge to make school lunches more nutritious and hand schools more money to do that, given the average lunch at that time cost just 45p to make.
Problem solved? Unfortunately not.
Continue reading...Regulator fears use of ‘covert marketing strategies’ by Sephora and Benefit might fuel compulsive habits
Italian regulators are investigating Sephora and Benefit Cosmetics over the apparent use of “covert marketing strategies” to sell beauty products to young girls that might be fuelling an unhealthy skincare obsession known as “cosmeticorexia”.
The Italian Competition Authority said it was looking into promotions for skincare products such as face masks, serums and anti-ageing creams that in some cases appeared to target girls under 10.
Continue reading...Bypassing animal health certificate system by using cheaper pet passport issued abroad could backfire, experts say
British pet owners who want to take their furry friends elsewhere in Europe have been warned not to try to dodge expensive health certificates by using a pet passport issued abroad.
Before Brexit, taking a cat, dog or ferret to the EU was relatively simple: the Pet Travel Scheme meant an animal needed a microchip, vaccination against rabies, a pet passport and, for dogs, there were also requirements concerning tapeworm treatment.
Continue reading...Brand enlists JW Anderson to help brew up 17-piece range of luxury fashionwear, from ‘beer towel’ shorts to branded trousers and tops
You too can look like a pub carpet – and for the bargain price of £1,295. Such sartorial elegance – perhaps an option for anyone stepping out to celebrate St Patrick’s Day this week – is the aesthetic love-child of a partnership between Guinness and the luxury clothing brand JW Anderson.
The tie-up, launched earlier this month, allows fashionistas to get their hands on a range of Guinness wear that exploits the continuing metamorphosis of the “black stuff” from unfashionable pub staple to social media status symbol.
Continue reading...Designer’s first catwalk for the brand in Milan flirts with bad taste with short, tight dresses and a diamante G-string
Demna is fashion’s dark lord of apocalyptic streetwear. Gucci is the glossy sex kitten of Milan. Put the two together, and what do you get? Sex appeal that flirts with bad taste.
At Demna’s first Gucci catwalk show, staged in Milan on Friday afternoon in front of an audience including Donatella Versace and Paris and Nicky Hilton, dresses were so short and tight that Emily Ratajkowski periodically yanked down a handful of disco-ball sequins to cover her bottom as she walked. There were lapdance-bar tinsel hair extensions, and Kate Moss in a diamante G-string. A certain sketchiness in the roll of the hips, a model who pulled his phone out of his bumbag and scrolled his way down the catwalk.
Continue reading...Designer Daniel Lee’s trenchcoats and bomber jackets fizz with urban energy in collection that embraces bad weather
In a winter of record-breaking rain, Burberry – purveyor of the stalwart British coat – is back in the zeitgeist. A season of downpours has provided an apt backdrop for a return to form, as the brand re-entered the FTSE 100 last autumn after an ignominious year out of the charts.
The classic check scarf was ranked the fourth hottest fashion item in the last quarter of 2025 on the search, sales and social media metrics of the Lyst index, with overall demand for the brand up 239% year on year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Project Giving Back, set up in 2022 to help charities exhibit show gardens, says this year will be its last
Chelsea flower show is looking for new charity sponsors after the mystery philanthropic couple who have spent more than £23m on show gardens end their support.
Project Giving Back was set up by two anonymous donors in 2022, and since then it has paid for 63 gardens at the most prestigious horticultural event in the world, held each summer at the Royal Hospital gardens in south-west London.
Continue reading...Police say UK entrepreneur Quentin Griffiths fell from 17th floor of an 18-floor condominium on 9 February
Quentin Griffiths, the co-founder of the online fashion retailer Asos, has died after falling from an apartment building in the Thai seaside resort city of Pattaya.
Police told Reuters that the 58-year-old had fallen from the 17th floor of an 18-storey condominium on 9 February.
Continue reading...City of Catania calls ruse to avoid CCTV cameras installed to stop fly-tipping ‘as cunning as it is doubly wrong’
A man in Catania, Sicily, trained his dog to dump bags of rubbish by the roadside in an attempt to evade surveillance cameras installed to combat fly-tipping, municipal police have said.
The episode was detailed in a post on the city of Catania’s official Facebook page. Accompanying a video of the dog was a remark from the police that “inventiveness can never become an alibi for incivility”.
Continue reading...Two new books analyse what makes the ‘perfect pub’ and both come to a sobering conclusion: Irish pubs are in trouble
Like triple-distilled whiskey, Irish pubs appear to have timeless appeal. They are staple setting in films, books and plays, draw tourists to Ireland, replicate themselves around the world and induce social media quests for the perfect snug and the perfect pint.
Scholars have now bestowed academic imprimatur on this cultural treasure status by examining – and celebrating – pubs through the lens of history, sociology, architecture, psychology, design, art and literature.
Continue reading...Marketing or celebrity-led treatments for toddlers and upwards described as ‘ridiculous’ and lacking in skin benefit
Dermatologists have criticised an actor’s new skincare brand, calling it “dystopian” for creating face masks for four-year-olds, warning that the beauty industry is now expanding its reach from teenagers to toddlers.
It comes as a growing number of brands are moving into the children’s, teenage and young adult skincare market. In October, the first skincare brand developed for under-14s, Ever-eden, launched in the US. Superdrug has just created a range for those aged between 13 and 28.
Continue reading...Switch comes amid first festive season since Daniel Křetínský’s takeover of parent company IDS
Royal Mail says that it has “delivered Christmas” for more than 500 years, but this year many workers have been left feeling less than festive after the company downgraded a small gift to workers to second class.
The postal service, which traces its history back to the appointment of a “master of the posts” by Henry VIII in 1516, has given workers a collection of 50 Christmas stamps to recognise their work over the busiest time of year. In previous years, including in 2024, workers have received a book of 50 or 100 first-class stamps, but that has quietly been switched to second class this year.
Continue reading...YouGov study of six countries finds those in Denmark most likely to approve of nudism and have been naked in public
Germans may have a hard-won reputation for being Europe’s most enthusiastic nudists, but a survey suggests Danes are not only more accepting of stripping off in public, but more likely to have actually done so.
The YouGov survey of six western European countries – the UK, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – found that Danes were the most likely to say it was perfectly OK to bare all in public places – and to have followed through.
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