In an era when content is king, culinary arts have carved a top spot on small and big screens alike. Look to the recent success of series like The Bear, or films like Boiling Point and The Menu, testifying to audiences’ heightened appetite for entertainment rooted in food and fine dining.
Simultaneously, influencers such as Gabbriette are whisking together fashion and food on TikTok, serving up their recipe videos with a side of style. Another form of rising food content is brought by private chefs who work for celebrities. Sophie’s Munch, Rob Li and Wishbone Kitchen lead the pack, sharing daily updates and vlogs showing a behind-the- scenes view of their jobs.
This blend of fashion and food is creating a new domain in which amateur and professional chefs are becoming powerful voices, influencing not only what their audiences eat, but also what they buy and wear. Wishbone Kitchen’s Meredith Hayden, for instance, collaborated with Dior to promote its Gem Dior bracelets in a digital campaign in August 2023.
Continue the conversation: Cooking is in its chic era, and so is hosting. Food-led entertainment can be a conversation-starter to inspire event planning, from décor to dress code.
Image: Gabbriette
Image: Erewhon, US
While Luxury houses are employing culinary couture activations to expand their brand universe. One example is La Prairie’s recent collaboration with pastry chef Cédric Grolet. The beauty brand asked Grolet to re-interpret its Skin Caviar range through the lens of culinary arts and to craft a savoury pastry incorporating the face cream’s star ingredient – caviar.
In the fashion sphere, Burberry took over greasy spoon café Norman’s during London Fashion Week in September. Classic fry-ups were served in Burberry-branded décor, signalling the brand’s reconnection to its British roots.
Similarly, in August, Chanel opened the Lucky Chance Diner pop-up in a Brooklyn diner to celebrate its Chance fragrance.
Continue the conversation: Have your clients ever visited a pop-up café from a luxury brand or the Monsieur Dior restaurant?
Once demonised, carbohydrates are cool again – and more luxury than ever. It’s an unlikely comeback at a time when diet culture is omnipresent and weight loss drug Ozempic is flying off the shelves. Post-lockdown, new bakery concepts started taking cues from streetwear to reach hype-beast levels of popularity.
Driven by the drop business model, local bakehouses like L’Appartement 4F in New York or London-based Forno have become strong brands, whose reputation and baked goods have people waiting for hours for a buttery bite they can flaunt on social media.
While the cool kids might think pastries are the best thing since sliced bread, it’s only a matter of time before other novel foods get the hype bake treatment too. In Paris, the viral ice cream parlour Folderol recently had to hire a bouncer to manage its queue, and it banned photographing and filming on-site.
Continue the conversation: Word of mouth is the engine of the hype bake machine. Have you noticed hype bakeries rising in your era? Are there under-the-radar spots you can recommend to your clients before they are taken by storm?
Images: L’Appartement 4F, New York
