Premium today is less about extravagance and more about essentialism. It’s about reduction: getting rid of the superfluousness in our lives. It’s also about consuming responsibly, and being culturally aware and values conscious. The creative class especially wants to live in a world with fewer things, and more ideas, and as Philippe Starck said, “We have to replace beauty, which is a cultural concept, with goodness, which is a humanist concept.”
 
Western consumers had already been looking for something more meaningful before late April when Milan Design Week took place. Rather than buying into the idea of the perfect kitchen, it’s the memories and meals that will be created in the space – not the exact finishings of the cabinet door handles – that took precedence in our design choices. Attention to detail is still key, and as the hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray said, “It’s all about the marmalade” – but not at the expense of the social interactions that occur in the hotel.
 
Many of the items on display were still about the individual home rather than shared spaces. With few featured items for shared places, how can we know shared civility or shared culture? We start then only to see the world through our and our friends’ eyes/kitchen windows. And even in our own individual homes, there was little in the way of flexible design. Adjustable lighting, moveable walls and reconfigured seating arrangements all allow for spontaneous living. Changeable spaces lead to the feeling of agility and fluidity in your own environment. Though PROOFF (Product Development for the Progressive Office) did display adaptable work sofas for the office environment with various seating combinations stitched into the covers.
 
While there’s a glut of products on the market, prototyping and then only making what is ordered does seem like a clever idea. But this waiting for commercial acceptance – that trumps artistic commitment – leads to some of the passionless and thoughtless design on display. Prototyped chairs that you aren’t allowed to touch, let alone sit on. What’s the point? I doubt any of the Italian renaissance masters devised a quick sketch and only painted the canvas once an order for the masterpiece had entered the invoice system.
 
As our world becomes more and more virtual, we will continue to seek out humane and tactile design. So where were the curves and lines that simulate nature, the human body and our own emotions? They were seldom to be seen. ‘Smart’ fabrics that can give a warm embrace by providing comfort and warmth through amazing material quality? Again, my fingers hardly touched this type of fabric. There was also an unwillingness to recognise the blurring of physical and virtual worlds. Where was the emotive technology?
 
Rather on display it was products that piqued your interest for a second, and just as quickly, your attention strayed: Aitor Throup’s 20th anniversary edition of C.P. Company’s iconic Goggle Jacket; Karim Rashid’s Veuve Cliquot Globalight, a contemporary interpretation of the candelabra (both a lamp and a thermal bottle holder); cardboard wardrobes at Skitsch; kitten heels and tape measures as coat hooks at Superstudio Piu; and the Comet Lamp by Tom Dixon for Veuve Cliquot based on the laws of geometry and inspired by the emblem of the champagne house. But what left an impression on the heart???
 
Consumers are no longer willing to put up with the rational and the repetitious. It takes emotion to differentiate your offer and be desirable. Quality is intrinsically and emotionally connected to the story and the heritage of the brand. Why is good design no longer seen as lasting forever? In fashion analogy, it used to be designer you keep, high street you don’t. But these days much designer wear is also disposable. We must acknowledge that superior quality has an emotional payback – something well made is a joy to experience. Admit it. Quality of life and quality of product need to be one. Put simply: buy less, buy better and look after it. If it breaks – fix it, and if you have no further use for it, pass it on.
 
Sustainability was also a key theme this year. The totality of a product’s life cycle is becoming more important – from raw material acquisition to disposal. We can’t just look at the product before us and not afford to ask, how did it come to be before me? Who worked on it? Under what conditions? In which country? And as we ask the questions of how a product came to be before us, we must also ask how will it come to be after us? Will it become landfill? Will it be reused? How will it be recycled? Manufacturers must optimise the life cycle and redesign for innovation, and not use sustainability solely as a word they bounce around in press releases. [A gold star though to Veuve Cliquot and the presentation of their environmental charter. In the past six years the champagne house has halved their water consumption, sorted 97% of their waste, and invented the first industrially produced eco-friendly presentation box.]
 
Companies have lost connection with the changing needs, desires and circumstances of their customers and are struggling to respond effectively. Success in the design space is less about identifying and providing the trendy ‘things’ important to people, and more about understanding the role these ‘things’ play in people’s lives. The emotional aspects of a brand can offer real value to consumers (without damaging the environment). So designers and manufacturers – big up the emotion for next year.