What is the secret to creating ultra premium luxury? Might it be the imperfect?
Perfect Luxury
Very few of the objects around us today show any evidence of who made them, who designed or conceived them. The apple iPhone a marvel of the modern age we live in-today symbolises the perfect, the machine made, and unlike the early Macintoshs which were hand assembled hiding unique hidden details. We are all driven to customise and personalise these modern tools of ours with covers, personal photo screensavers to make them personal to make them uniquely our own, make them more human. Yes there is a beauty in the perfect, the unspoilt, but is it human is it personal and does it tell a story?
Many of todays luxury spirit brands create exquisitely manufactured packaging experiences. Often leveraging the brand value of famous artists, fashion designers and architects to create unique and engaging offers, in limited numbers. Utilising the most luxurious materials with thoughtful detailing, they are prime examples of luxurious perfection and faultless uniformity.
They satisfy our innate human desire for perfection and flawless beauty and are objects we are instinctively driven to consume, own and admire. However could more luxury value be created in being different, rather than being just perfect, could we create ultra premium luxury by being imperfect?
Blurring Boundaries – Art or Design?
The disciplines of Art, Design and Craft are continually overlapping, merging, blurring and borrowing from each other.
Duchamp redefined the art world with his “Ready-mades”, sculptures like the hedge hog a utilitarian metal bottle stand and the fountain, a mass produced urinal bought, laid on its back and signed “R Mutt” by the artist. Why “R Mutt” you ask well Duchamp was questioning the evidence of the artist and the role of a signature in the art world up to then. A radical thought back in 1917 and a controversial artwork which even sparks debate today.
On reflection we see designers and architects creating furniture as art. Ron Arad’s many iterations of Big Easy, Gehry’s ribboned plywood Cross Check and Power Play chairs and Newson’s Lockheed Lounger are exhibits in modern art museum collections around the world. All have details that show evidence of the maker, the hammered aluminium and irregular spacing of pop rivets, weld seems and split lines from moulds. Minute details and flaws that make each piece of work uniquely different, tell a story and show evidence of the makers.
British Fashion designer Paul Smith is well know for signature details, the odd coloured button, flamboyant hand stitched linings, imagery of design icons and street art captured on bags and accessories which were transferred to limited editions of Evian water. We know Paul didn’t sign each bottle but the machine applied designs elevate the value of a glass bottle of water.
Alternatively Alexander McQueen working as a Saville Row tailor would often sign or write subversive statements in chalk hidden in the linings of made to measure jackets and coats, never to been seen, a subversive hidden mark of the artist.
In the early 80’s Steve jobs made apple engineers sign the inside of the early apple 128k computers they made and assembled. Maybe out of a sense of pride, jobs considered these new macs at the time were a work of art and deserved a signature by the people who had created them, a unique detail that positioned them away from the large growing computer market. Today these early macs are fetching $900,000+ dollars, whether the signatures add anything to the value it’s up for debate. They play no other role other than to add meaning to objects. Evidence to say we made this, telling a story of craft or signal the makers thoughts or beliefs at that time.
A few years back in 2012 Absolut vodka managed the seemingly impossible, creating uniquely finished almost hand decorated bottles that looked like hand finished pieces of art. A masterful piece of engineering and programming working against order, control and stability with robotic arms with spray heads now programmed to create randomness and variation. Many thought this was impossible but the creative and technical team managed to establish a set of algorithms for the machines to then run with and ultimately create 4 million unique bottles. This is considered their most successful bottle design to date.
Imperfect Luxury
Imperfect Luxury resides in the details, in unique flaws, blemishes, marks, knots, scratches that are found in luxurious materials or the methods by which they’ve been formed, shaped and crafted. Brushstrokes on a painting or the signature of the artist themselves in the corner of the canvas. The pontil mark of hand blown art glass decanter or the slightest undulations on the surface of a piece of hand made silver or the hallmarks stamped into them. We believe that this imperfect luxury is evidence of the artist and elevates objects into a new strata of luxury, that of pieces of art.
Evidence of the Artist
Two Scottish artists we’ve had the recent pleasure of working with Brodie Nairn & John Galvin and their teams have recently created and crafted bespoke decanters and cases or sculptures for The Glen Grant Single Malt Scotch Whisky.
Seven uniquely finished expressions for a rare 75 year old cask to celebrate the Devotion of 75 years service as of longest serving monarch Queen Elizabeth II.
Exquisite pieces with all the details you’d expect from master craftsmen. A wooden cypher sculpture with a unique lime wash and hand finished texture that gives the final sculpture a bone like feel. A beautifully hand blown glass decanter that looks and feels like a crystal or knapped flint with bespoke hand made solid silver and hand engraved mount and cap which we helped hallmark.
What is entirely evident when you come face to face with these pieces is the craft, skill, time, effort and expertise that is captured in the hand worked surfaces, crafted structures and expertly manipulated materials that makes these standout pieces of art.
If Luxury items can show some evidence of the artist or designer it creates a narrative of their existence, a meaningful story to exist and ultimately more valuable pieces to own.
