Through the Looking Glass

"I think I knew we built something special, but I don't think I expected this [immense commercial and cultural success]."
"I almost missed it. Mirrors were something I took for granted because my entire career I worked out in front of them."
Brynn Putnam, 35, entrepreneur, former New York City Ballet dancer

"I legit use it as my full-length mirror."
"You would never in a thousand years know it was a piece of workout equipment."
New York actress Lindsey Bradley

Mirror

A whopping $1 million in monthly sales is a substantial return on an investment that seemed a logical advance in workout technology, and even its inventor was taken by surprise at its runaway success. There's nothing particularly new or different in viewing oneself critically (or admiringly as the case may be) through one of those ubiquitous mirrors in any recreational gym; everyone does it for reasons of their own, usually to be certain that they're making the right moves, using the body as it was meant to be used in pursuit of lithe, fit and athletic.

This mirror, however, is galaxies ahead of the world of mirrors so familiar to anyone who has ever used one. It is the most interactive mirror-mechanism yet produced, boasting 70 live fitness classes weekly that include boxing, dance, cardio, high intensity interval training and yoga. And that's for starters, there's more to come with a medium that allows the user to face the instructor while viewing their entire body alongside a smaller image of the instructor's body.

It doesn't act as a touch-screen; everyone knows how touchy mirrors can be about hosting greasy fingerprints; instead an app controls the device, which became available this past September, retailing at $1,495. Oh, and a $39 monthly subscription fee with four class levels. Its inventor, Brynn Putnam, had earlier opened her own boutique gym, Refine Method eight years ago in New York. She raised $38 million to fund her new enterprise, the production of 3.6-centimeter-thick mirrors.

So popular have they become by celebrity endorsements that they are being installed by luxury hotels in their suites. She had been an instructor ten years earlier at barre method gyms where substituting moves such as lunges were looked unfavourably upon and which led her to create her own gym Refine, after disagreeing with sport scientists and professional athletes' trainers about moves she favoured and they didn't.

When she opened at first in a 45-square-meter ground-floor New York space she designed a cable tower of weighted sailing pulleys and tracks readily disassembled and remounted, for strength exercises. In 2016, she surveyed Refine members about new class times, trainers and custom-produced equipment. Mirrors she had put in place turned out to be her clients' favourite installation for instant feedback. That served as her motivation to focus on mirrors.

Kailee Combs, the vice-president of fitness at Mirror, works out with some of the demos on one of the Mirror products in their showroom in New York. Photograph: Vincent Tullo/The New York Times

In the planning stages for the very new future, is personal training to start at $40 each session. And children's needs for sports participation preparation have not been forgotten; that too in the offing. And then, treadmill and spin workouts, among the ambitious plans by the Mirror company, to have the device regarded by users as their third screen after their phone and computer. It can also be used for organizing photos, and to chat.

Even at the present time, users are able shop through the Mirror for fitness gear and instructor favourites. Leaving no innovative initiative unexplored, and buoying the bottom line at the very same time. That's entrepreneurial skill at its apex!

Mirror