Digital bespoke

 

For all this talk about functionality, what about the other side of the scale, namely craftsmanship and customization? Luxury design’s definition may have expanded to include elegant functionality, but have we abandoned the desire for handcrafted, bespoke and artisan products altogether? Certainly not, says Selvaggia Armani, an architect and designer, whose work straddles the old- and new-world definitions of luxury design.

 

Armani paints on leather hides; each is unique, and not inexpensive. Customers often purchase them to upholster furniture, or create custom handbags and leather accessories. The hides—which are carefully selected and treated—are built to be unique and last for decades (or, alternatively, through countless cycles of smartphone updates). Armani says many customers purchase the hides with the idea that they can pass them on to their children, or grandchildren.

 

Simultaneously, Armani designs models for 3D-printed home appliances. She’s drawn to the medium because of its lightning quickness. Whereas traditional industrial design manufacturing “takes months and months,” 3D printing allows her to start the process within two weeks.

 

These two realms are not as disconnected as they first appear.

 

Somewhat ironically, 3D printing brings us back to the age of bespoke products, just with dramatically reduced prices, says SOLS CEO Schouwenburg. Her company was founded on the principle of harnessing technology to make customization affordable. “We’re defining a new product category where luxury is driven by technology that can create a product unique to you, as opposed to buying something off the shelf,” she says. “In some ways that’s even more luxurious because it’s the single, only one that exists in the entire world.”

 

On digital screens, the definition of luxury changes

 

Analog luxury products are largely tactile, whereas digital products are largely not. “If you look at luxury analog watches, the dials and the numbers are everything,” says Jen. “With the Apple watch, while it is a beautifully designed product, when it’s not turned on you see a black rectangle.” In her view, it’s a real loss; we’re wired to crave textured detail and elaborate craftsmanship. Although design-savvy Apple appears to anticipate this, too. The company recently partnered with Hermès to create smartwatches with stitched wristbands, to be called Apple Watch Hermès. As Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès’ executive vice president in charge of artistic direction said, “I see it as the establishment of an alliance in excellence; like horse and carriage, a perfect team.”

 

But some horses and carriages are not compatible.  Simply put, luxury design that works with analog products doesn’t always translate to digital ones. “Trying to accomplish a feeling of luxury on a digital screen is an entirely different ball game than trying with a tangible object,” says Jen. Analog luxury is about materials, craftsmanship, intricacy and how a product feels in your hand—all considerations that can’t be expressed on a flat screen.

 

Digital luxury, then, has its own rules, ones that value clean design. Because the digital places more import on functionality, screens are often there to convey information. As such, “clarity is paramount—clarity in itself can be a kind of protean for making something feel luxurious.” While ornamentation reads as luxury in the analog world, in the digital world it too easily registers as clunky and crowded. Simplicity reigns supreme.

 

The future: technology that disappears

 

This tension between analog and digital provides further insight into why digital products, for some, will never successfully enter the rarified stratosphere of luxury design.

 

Upon her graduation from university more than 20 years ago, Armani’s mother gave her a beautiful, classic Swiss watch. She’s worn it ever since. It connects her to a moment and a loved one, which reinforces the durability of its underlining design: “It becomes like a part of you—something personal, something without time.” She says she’ll never purchase a smartwatch because it violates her sense of what a watch should do. “It’s like your wedding ring—you don’t change it.”

 

This concept—that a luxury product should tether consumers to a past history and is therefore irreplaceable —has been used by luxury brands as a defense against encroaching competition from technology companies such as Apple. For an ad spot that ran during Wimbledon 2015, Rolex hammered home this point.

 

In the commercial, 17 Grand Slam tennis champion Roger Federer walks through a museum where the walls are hung with images and videos depicting some of the greatest moments in tennis history. As he moves through the space, pausing to admire each memory, the audience hears, in voice-over:

 

Why this watch?

This watch has witnessed the epic,

World’s most famous fortnight

And the century of traditions unchanged.

It’s heard the hush of the crowd,

The whip of the maestro,

And the lawn of courts center stage.

It doesn’t just tell time,

It tells history.

 

Despite vocal early adopters of digital design, such as Singh and Schouwenburg, this conveyed sense of timelessness—made possible through physical tactility and the absence of software updates—continues to trump a new world order that values seamless, functional, evolving, and ultimately screen-centered design.

 

As we move forward, Schouwenburg hopes luxury design will come to encompass the best of both worlds. The dream is that technology becomes invisible. “I love everything that is being done from a software perspective, but I want it to happen in a way that is nonintrusive, where you don’t even see it.” In the past, the Swiss would give the proud owner of a luxury watch a peek at the tourbillon inside, a mechanical marvel of immense complexity from the 18th century. Now picture a Patek Philippe watch with all the advanced software features and capabilities of an Apple Watch hidden inside.

 

In the future, luxury design may be impossible to spot.

Says Schouwenburg, “It should just disappear.”