After attending the Handset Fashion and Style Congress hosted by ARCCHART a few weeks ago, I posted the following question on LinkedIn to see what passions it might stir. “Is a luxury phone a contradiction in terms?”
The responses that came in were very interesting and showed that there were some very strong views both for and against the idea of luxury phones.
By way of background, the conference had presentations from a broad range of players involved in the fashion, design, handset manufacture and mobile service industries. Handset designers/developers included Vertu, Tag Heuer and Sagem/Porsche Design and Modu. Design studios included Design Studio Nuovo, Idem, Brand Design Lab, Syntes Studio, TAT and Curventa.
I pointed out in my question that while I had no problem getting my head around the idea of the ‘fashion phone’, the idea of the luxury phone proved a little more challenging despite the analogies being made between it and the ‘luxury watch’.
Clarifying the Question
Some of the earliest responses suggested rather subtly that I might have missed the point completely when it comes to the concept of luxury. So I went on to mention that the conference spent some time discussing brands, definitions of fashion and luxury, and whether ‘slapping’ a brand on a phone was enough to transform it into a luxury item. I also summarised some of the conference’s definitions of ‘luxury’, which included notions of heritage, high-quality materials, excellent craftsmanship, exclusivity, self-expression, and indulgence) and went on to restate the question in even more provocative terms:
“So antique collecting aside, the question still remains. Will there be a big luxury market (especially in the heritage/rarity/craftsmanship sense) for something as ephemeral as a phone – a functional object with very limited stand-alone capabilities and a high propensity to make its owners look outdated and unfashionable very quickly – or might we be looking at just a limited ‘indulgence’ market? Conversely, is the luxury phone the Holy Grail for vendors who aim to address the wants and needs of those with an insatiable appetite for the latest, greatest and most exclusive?”
Coming off the Fence – Sort of
Having raised the question, I guess ought to come off the fence and say where I stand on the subject. Frankly, I can see both sides of the argument. I think there will always be a market for objects that are perceived to be exclusive, or that are expensive beyond the means (or good sense/imagination) of most people. Also, there will continue to be people who want to express themselves (e.g. their status, wealth, good taste) by seeking the most exclusive or expensive items or experiences. Nevertheless, I believe we are living in a world in which our sense of quality and exclusivity are increasingly taking on a technological dimension, where the luxury and indulgences we seek are increasingly functional, where the rate of obsolescence of material possessions is forever increasing and where in our new technocracy, value, style, fashion and good taste are increasingly seen in technological terms.
So no, antique collecting aside, I don’t expect that owners of many luxury phones will in ten years time be looking lovingly upon devices that no longer function (and whose form factors and interface mechanisms will have been left behind by several technological revolutions) in the same way that luxury watch owners might look upon old time pieces. After all, the latter can typically still tell the time, and they still ‘interface’ with a person in the same way they did a hundred years ago.
The notion of technological advancement possibly bounding the growth opportunity for luxury is not that far-fetched. Most of us don’t have to look that far back to recall ourselves or our friends posing with the latest ‘coolest’ phone, (or the most ‘luxurious’ home entertainment system) bought at a significant market premium, only to not want to be seen dead with it a year or two later. I am not convinced that the luxury seekers, especially those with a propensity for self-expression through material possession are beyond the influence of ‘fashionable opinion’ about good and poor taste.
To those who say that there will be a big market, I say you might be right. After all, what better formula can you have than a rapidly evolving technology base feeding an insatiable appetite for exclusivity? In fact, the purveyors of luxury products might just have hit upon the Holy Grail in the mobile phone and its future derivatives.
To those who say they are not so convinced that there will be a big market, I say you might be right too. After all, even to be useful as an image prop, the device still needs to be able to function. And if even the geekiest of us have limited a appetite for bleeding-edge early adoption, through being constantly starved of the opportunity to extract even the lowest levels of functionality we anticipated was commensurate with the market premium we were prepared to pay, what can we expect of those with a lower pain threshold?
Of course it is useful also to examine more closely the basic concept of the luxury phone. To what extent can the luxury part and the phone part be disaggregated while still maintaining the notions of heritage, craftsmanship exclusivity etc? Although Nokia has succeeded in establishing Vertu as a luxury brand, Frank Nouvo, one of the original architects of Vertu, was very candid about the challenges he and his team had to overcome and the amount of time it took to establish the brand.
Maybe there is no contradiction. Maybe the future is luxury on the outside and phone on the inside. If this transpires to be the case, maybe organisations like Modu with their modular design concept are helping to lay the foundations for the future of this luxury market.
Finally, I agree with those like David Ahmad of the Royal College of Art whom I met at the conference and Victor Ronin of Mobile Effort who suggest that a better analogy for the luxury phone is the luxury car. But even that might be a stretch too far since the human interface to the car has not changed that much in a hundred years either. _________________________________________________________________
For anyone interested in expressing their views on this topic, I have posted a more concise version of the question on the Answers page of this portal. Please feel free to submit your views. If you have not yet registered as a user of this portal, then although you will be able to read other people’s comments, you will need to do so before you can comment. Registration is FREE.
Abraham Joseph is Founder of the Device Management Forum and Managing Partner of Inteligentis, a UK based research and consulting company. You can contact him at
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