Drive-in cinemas, raves and dining behind plastic: the new going out
FILE PHOTO: Models and family members are seen dining at a restaurant where they test servers providing drinks and food to models pretending to be clients in a safe "quarantine greenhouses" in which guests can dine in Amsterdam, Netherlands May 5, 2020. REUTERS/Eva Plevier/File Photo
With lockdown measures more relaxed, social lives are slowly becoming possible. Restaurants, bars, gigs and museums beckon. But as we take our first cautious steps back into the wider world, we are finding it transformed.
Gone are restaurants so busy that you have to wait for service or the check. Now, in the coronavirus-era, social distancing has made eating out a very different experience.
At Da Enzo's in Rome, waiters no longer hand out menus, but hold up a scan code. Customers point their smart phones at it and a menu pops up on screen with the day's specialties.
FILE PHOTO: Designer Zhou Li and Ni Zan'er in protective suits and silk face masks designed by Zhou, pose for pictures at a studio in Beijing, following the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, China May 17, 2020. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
Dining companions - from the same household, please - might eat around a candle-lit table inside a glass booth on the banks of an Amsterdam canal, a concept being tried out by the ETEN restaurant.
If that doesn't appeal, diners can try eating with a see-through lampshade on their heads, created by French designer Christophe Gernigon for restaurant owners who want to protect customers from COVID-19.
Other designs on the market resemble visitor booths in prisons, Gernigon said, prompting him to create a cylinder of transparent plastic that hangs from the ceiling, much like a lampshade.
FILE PHOTO: Arthur Bella N'guessan, an Ivorian designer, and a young model pose as they wear protective face masks with colors matching their clothes, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Angre area of Abidjan, Ivory Coast May 13, 2020. REUTERS/Luc Gnago/File Photo
"I wanted to make it more glamorous, more pretty," he said.
Want to catch a movie after dinner but your local cinema is closed under lockdown rules? Drive-in cinemas are seeing a revival, popping up in Lithuania, Dubai and the United States.
On the Cote d'Azur, in Cannes, you can drive to Palm Beach and watch films from the comfort of your own car.
FILE PHOTO: People sit in their cars watching a movie in a drive-in cinema at the Milad Tower parking space, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Tehran, Iran, May 3, 2020. WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Ali Khara via REUTERS
If clubbing is your thing, Germans got the party started with a drive-in rave. In the car park of Club Index in the town of Schüttorf near the Dutch border, clubbers - limited to two per car - parked in rows in front of a DJ and hopped around to the beats while respecting government-imposed social distancing measures.
Lasers, glowsticks, confetti and a whole lot of horn honking set the mood as people celebrated their new-found freedom.
"The night had quite a party vibe here. It was perhaps even better than a normal club night would be," said organiser Holger Boesch, who runs Club Index.
FILE PHOTO: An audience member enjoys a drive-in concert organised to allow people to experience live music while observing the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions in Sydney, Australia, May 21, 2020. REUTERS/Loren Elliott/File Photo
And forget lockdown beards and daytime pyjamas - soon there will be no more excuses for the Robinson Crusoe quarantine look.
Designers from Lebanon to China to Nigeria are creating extraordinary face masks and protective clothing, and in South Korea, YouTubers are giving tutorials to maximise the make-up and mask look.
In Lagos, designer Sefiya Diejomaoh believes a global pandemic should not get in the way of style. Gold-coloured and studded with sparkling diamante jewels, her face mask matches her floor-length dress.
FILE PHOTO: A woman poses under a Plex'Eat prototype plexiglas bubble by designer Christophe Gernigon which surrounds diners to protect them from the novel coronavirus during a presentation in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, near Paris, as restaurants in France prepare to re-open post-lockdown, May 20, 2020. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo
(Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
FILE PHOTO: People sit in their cars watching a movie in a drive-in cinema at the Mall of the Emirates, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, May 13, 2020. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah/File PhotoFILE PHOTO: A waiter holds a placard showing a barcode that customers scan on their phones to view the restaurant menu, to avoid using paper menus that are touched by many customers, as Italy eases some of the lockdown measures put in place following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Rome, Italy, May 20, 2020. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File PhotoFILE PHOTO: Singer Cass Hopetoun performs at a drive-in concert organised to allow people to experience live music while observing the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions in Sydney, Australia, May 21, 2020. REUTERS/Loren Elliott/File PhotoFILE PHOTO: Cars are seen at a provisional drive-in cinema organised by the Neovaude organisation in front of the ruin of the Phoenix West steel mill, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Dortmund, Germany, April 17, 2020. REUTERS/Leon Kuegeler/File Photo
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