THE DENS OF ZEN
Still schlepping from gym to lunch to spa to yoga? The UK’S new luxe urban retreats promise to meet all of your wellness needs under one roof. You’ll never want to leave…
Enter the one-stop wellness shops popping up near you
Regardless of what anyone says, I still think savasana is one of the trickiest yoga poses to pull off. Not because it means twisting like a pretzel or balancing my entire body weight on a single toe, but because it requires me to perform a trick of the mind as much as of the body. In savasana, lying flat on my back, arms and legs splayed, the aim is a state of total relaxation – a quiet mind, aligned with a still body. ‘Total. Relaxation,’ I think to myself as I stare at a grey industrial ceiling. ‘I could get on board with that.’
I’m at Foodwell, a new 9,000sq ft mind-body-soul concept space just across the river from Spinningfields in Manchester. As well as a studio where you can attend yoga and guided meditation sessions, there’s a restaurant and a deli, both of which specialise in nutritionally balanced and Ayurvedic-inspired dishes. The vibe is deeply Instagrammable – indoor palm trees, yellow furnishings, millennial pink loos and a veritable nursery of succulents, ferns, cacti and aloe vera – and the studio is equally immersive. One wall acts as a huge screen on to which HD sunrises and sunsets are projected. Every detail fits into the luxe wellness ethos, from the Lululemon rubber mats and marble-effect yoga blocks to the indoor wishing well (yes, a well into which you throw coins and make wishes – all the money is given to charity), which is spotlit by a spectacular copper chandelier. And at night it all turns into a bar, complete with DJS and vegan wines and cocktails.
It follows in the footsteps of multidisciplinary wellness outposts such as Glow Bar and Cloud Twelve, both of which opened to much fanfare in London in the latter half of 2018. These spaces represent a new frontier of wellness, bringing together gym culture, #selfcareappropriate spa and beauty services, restaurant-quality health food and the kind of crystal healing and ancient Ayurvedic practices that have seen an explosion in popularity over the past two years. ‘The doctor’s surgery, beauty spa and fitness space are converging into a hybrid offering,’ says Victoria Buchanan, researcher at trend forecasting agency The Future Laboratory. ‘There’s greater emphasis on gentle movement, nutrition and regeneration. Mindfulness practices are often integrated or central to classes, and fitness is seen as just one part of a holistic wellness.’ All of these outlets take a slightly different approach, but the central concept remains the same – they’re selling that savasana-style total mind-body relaxation; balance, if you will, packaged in a Pinterest-worthy environ that you can dip in and out of, without dropping hundreds of pounds on overnight stays or repeat appointments. Glow Bar was born out of founder Sasha Sabapathy’s desire to create a supplement brand that would make the Ayurvedic herbs she’d come to rely on appealing to other millennial women. Rather than house her products in a traditional shopfront, though, Sasha decided to incorporate them into a retail space that also has cafe seating, a vegan menu and spa treatments. ‘When
‘The doctor’s surgery, beauty spa and fitness space are converging’
I first started incorporating Ayurvedic herbs into my diet, it was to remedy the burnout that had been creeping up on me after years spent living in the work-hard, play-hard culture of New York. It was 2016, and those kind of supplements were still considered New Age,’ she recalls. ‘You could get them in Planet Organic and Whole Foods, but I didn’t want to carry around a brown paper bag full of powders. It’s not cool and it’s not chic. I realised there needed to be
a brand that could connect with women and educate them about holistic healing in a fun, Instagrammable manner.’
At the Marylebone ‘bar’, you can spend 45 minutes in an infrared sauna and refuel with an Ayurveda-friendly fruit or veggie bowl before picking yourself up a chic 45g pot of said Ayurvedic herb. As with Foodwell, dusky pink decor is offset with plant life – and the whole place has the pleasantly medicinal smell of a herbal pharmacy. On a bright Wednesday morning, I stop by to perch on the bench seating and, over the gentle hum of low-fi hip-hop, order the ‘Chill’ moon milk, a floral blend of maqui berry, ashwagandha and lavender. I’m surrounded by women in their late twenties or early thirties, many tapping away on laptops in premium athleisure wear and periodically popping down to the saunas.
Cloud Twelve goes even further, with an on-site clinic that offers osteopathy, acupuncture, vitamin infusions and cryotherapy. ‘We even have a Himalayan salt room,’ says founder Jenya Emets, explaining that clients book in to spend time sitting in a small salt cave to utilise its natural antibacterial properties. Emets worked in banking before retraining as a herbalist and, as she explains to me, the idea of Cloud Twelve – nestled in a mews in London’s Notting Hill – is to promote balance, boost health and de-stress the mind. ‘We have five wellness areas in one space, because we quickly realised that we couldn’t just do a spa, because diet is such an important part of people’s health, so there would have to be a brasserie (strictly vegan – natch). And then people want to look good before they leave, so we introduced a hair salon.’ It’s not just about mental, physical and emotional wellness, the sell is social wellness, too, so there’s a family-friendly members’ club. In fact, Liv Tyler recently hosted a children’s birthday party there. I stop in one Friday afternoon and make my way through a hearty daal, amazing sprout salad and a chia peanut pudding that I’m too full to finish.
SAFE SPACE
None of this comes cheap. A sauna at Glow Bar is £40 per 45-minute session, and my post-sauna moon milk set me back another £5. Membership at Cloud Twelve starts at £1,200 per year and, for those just dropping in, most 30-minute treatments start at £50. And yet, for the people I meet and speak to at these places, they’re necessary expenditures. Sheena Murphy, 38, is the founder of super-cool interior design studio Nune and a Glow Bar regular. ‘It’s a really multifunctional space,’ she tells me. ‘I can get a therapeutic sauna in the middle of the day, then eat some really delicious, healthy food and work in the cafe. There’s a nice feel to the whole space.’ Sheena’s already a member of Third Space, an exclusive luxe gym in central London, but she saunas at Glow Bar once a week. ‘It’s not about fixing a problem; I see it as optimising my wellbeing. Once you’re in a good place, which I feel I am with my health now, it’s about doing what you can to maintain that balance. And the fact is, if I can do it all in one space – the good food, the relaxation – then it saves me time.’ Despite having only been open a few days, Foodwell is already abuzz with people when I visit. Well-put-together sorts clad in high-end sportswear, or groups in suits gathered around laptops. ‘This is really what we want from the space,’ says founder Christian Coates, a nutritionist who made his fortune through the meal prep company Soulmatefood before creating the Foodwell concept. ‘Somewhere people can spend all day and all evening, and still leave feeling refreshed.’ Coates also points out that a space that can offer an opportunity to work, relax and recharge and then socialise in is an obvious win for the time-poor clientele. It’s a sentiment echoed by Joanna Mcgarry, a beauty consultant turned acupuncturist. ‘These spaces fit with our increasingly multitasking behaviours,’ she says. ‘Our attention spans are shorter than ever, we need to be able to toggle through different activities in life as well as we do on our phones and at work.’
Before I leave, I get chatting to Joanne Gallagher, 32, who works in HR. It’s her first visit to Foodwell. ‘It feels very different from a “fitness” offering,’ she says. ‘I’d definitely want to build a meditation session or a yoga session into my week. With the amazing, balanced food and the focus on calming, restorative movement, this seems to be much more about nourishing your soul. I spend hours each day on my phone or on my laptop, so it’s good to have somewhere that’s going to take you outside of that intense, always-on mental space.’
STATE OF MIND
The birth of these urban wellness hubs follows the larger-scale pivot towards a more holistic approach to healthcare as prevention as well as cure. It mirrors the evolution from clean eating to food as medicine, and the shift from exercising as a means to assuage calorie guilt to moving for body and mind. It’s a movement personified by WH favourite Jasmine Hemsley. Along with her sister Melissa, she had become – way back in the early 2010s – one of the pioneers of the wellness movement via the popular Hemsley + Hemsley brand. By the end of 2017, Jasmine had published East By West, a cookbook based on Ayurvedic principles, and launched
Sound Sebastien, a series of sound bath pop-ups where crystal singing bowls were used to aid meditation.
As she told me at the time, ‘We’ve come to realise that we can’t just look after one part of ourselves... everything ’s connected. We can’t just hone our bodies in the gym but neglect our minds or our spirits and then expect to feel well.’ And it’s delivering the fruits of this ethos to time-poor women that these one-stop wellness shops are really about. It wasn’t enough for gyms to add a protein shake bar or for fitness studios to feature athleisure pop-ups – the amalgamation of spa, gym, food and clinic brings together what consumers are now seeing as their multifaceted understanding of how to reach an optimum state of being in both body and mind.
In February 2018, a few months after my interview with Jasmine, London’s first meditation studio Re:mind opened with an on-site tea cafe and eco-shop, aiming to bring balance to the stressed-out capital. Glow Bar came in August,
Cloud Twelve in September and Foodwell in February 2019. And as Coates explains over a moreish lunch of Korean-spiced aubergine and smoked tofu, plans are afoot to open a further five Foodwell centres in the next five years. We may well be witnessing the start of a revolution in the way we socialise and unwind. As Mcgarry explains, ‘Wellness is overtaking shopping as our leisure pursuit of choice. The emerging holistic wellness space is fast becoming the leading social Mecca for the 21st century, in the same way as the department store was in the 20th. In a post-celebrity, post-consumerist world, we seek a deeper, more spiritual connection to the activities that shape us, both in and outside of the workplace.’
Basically, I – along with the average health-conscious British woman – have become a much savvier consumer, no longer as easily seduced by a nice dress or the quick hit of dopamine from a get-in-get-out group exercise class. Instead, there’s a wish to spend time and money in places that make you feel good. It makes sense that each of these multidisciplinary wellness centres commits to sustainability. Foodwell, for instance, aims for zero food waste, to the point that avocado stones are ground up and used to make syrups for the espresso Martinis. The spa at Cloud Twelve uses only non-toxic eco-products, including natural nail varnishes, and recently received Peta’s Compassionate Business Award for its use of cruelty-free and vegan products.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time in ‘Zen’ spaces, eaten more Ayurvedic food and done more yoga than I ever have before. And I’ve been surprised (because, at heart, I’m a cynic) to find that I have felt more relaxed. Not total mindbody connection relaxed, but I moved house and juggled multiple deadlines without getting completely frazzled, which to me is a massive win. I guess it makes sense that if you start hanging out in places that are focused on ‘balance’, you do end up feeling more balanced. Interestingly, all of the founders that I spoke to said some variation of the same thing about what it was like
People want to spend time and money in places that make them feel good
pitching their idea to investors. To quote Coates, ‘It wasn’t an easy sell – a space focused on wellness isn’t something many business people have thought about.’ But seeing that business backers can get on board, I’d bet a moon milk on more of these places popping up. The popularity of those that are already open is soaring, so why not? Whether that’ll lead to a generation that’s more Zen than the last remains to be seen, but it certainly can’t hurt.