2 FEMALE FOUNDERS OF DUEL TURNING THE WELLNESS INDUSTRY ON ITS HEAD ARE FEATURING IN THE LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL THIS MONTH.

On 15 September 2026, a quietly radical new wellness product arrives on Redchurch Street, as part of the London Design Festival and the start of a global tour.

Duel 1509 is a racquet, but not as we know it. Designed to be carried as effortlessly as a handbag or a piece of jewellery, it proposes a new relationship between design, movement and everyday life — one in which exercise is less an appointment and more an impulse.

Created by two female founders from Cambridge, Duel has been developed with a science- and design-led team drawing on expertise from the University of Cambridge and London's St.Martin School of Art.

Its premise is disarmingly simple: 15 minutes and 09 seconds. Two people. One Duel. Anywhere. No court booking. No elaborate kit. No journey to the sports club. No need to change your day around exercise.

The racquet has been conceived as an object people want to have with them — an important distinction in a world increasingly interested in wellness, but increasingly resistant to the rituals and friction traditionally associated with it.

“By designing the Design racquet as a premium accessory, we have succeeded in creating a wellness product that people want to have with them,” says Avallon Constable, Co-founder of Duel.

“The design of the Duel racquet makes it effortless to draw it out and enjoy 15 minutes of fast movement.” explains fellow co-founder Honour Constable.

The thinking behind Duel begins with an observation: racquet sports are among the world's most compelling forms of physical activity, combining speed, reaction, coordination and play with the inherently social pleasure of competing against another person.

Yet the experience is often surrounded by friction. There is the court to find and book. The opponent to organise. The equipment to carry. The clothes to change into. The time required to get there and back. Duel removes the ceremony.

What remains is the essential part: two people moving quickly, responding to one another, laughing and playing. In this sense, Duel 1509 sits somewhere between sport and object design — less a piece of sporting equipment than a portable invitation to move.

Its ambition is not to persuade people to become athletes. It is to make movement sufficiently beautiful, immediate and social that people simply choose to do it. And perhaps that is where the next generation of wellness design lies: not in adding another device to monitor us, but in creating objects that make us want to put the phone down and move.

Duel 1509 will be presented on Redchurch Street during London Design Week on 15 September 2026. For more information visit duelsociety.org or contact avallon@duelsociety.org