Statements in the Making
FROM THE QUALITY OF THEIR CRAFT TO THE ORIGINALITY OF THEIR DESIGN, THESE PRODUCT ICONS — CURRENT AND FUTURE — ARE GUARANTEED TO PASS THE TEST OF TIME
In a disposable world, these products are sure to endure.
Remember the Maytag Repairman, the lonesome fictional washing-machine fixer who famously had little to do because Maytag appliances rarely broke down? In his heyday, product durability was a source of pride among manufacturers, and the reality of buying something for life wasn’t so far-fetched. Today, by contrast, our postglobal, speed-driven culture of impermanence tends to prize novelty over longevity, social-media buzz over evergreen appeal. Only recently have we begun to tally the increasingly dire costs to our planet and our societies of this slavish devotion to the new and next. As a result, slow design is hot again, as is a rejection of growth at any price. “If we’re honest with ourselves,” Colorado-based designer and academic Jesse Weaver wrote recently in Design Like You Mean It, his online newsletter, “we’ve set our bar of value incredibly low. In the big picture, we’ve actually hit a point where we are losing value when we rush to exploit every niche of a market, or when we try to convince people that their life will be transformed by throwing out their 10-megapixel camera for the new 12-megapixel version.” Of course, some brands have always understood the value of constancy. France’s Roche Bobois, for instance, has regularly enlisted a galaxy of design stars to jazz up the upholstery covering its modular Mah Jong sofa, but the system’s underlying strengths — its mix-and-match versatility, the couture-house level of handmade construction — have never wavered. Regardless of colour or pattern, Mah Jong transcends faddishness, appreciates with time, endures. It is this calibre of product — the icon that still resonates, the piece that survives and even thrives with updating, the clear classic of the future — that is worth our investment of time, money and effort. And it’s this type of product that we showcase and celebrate here.