DESIGNS ON YOU
Karim Rashid, the Bachelard-spouting design guru—whom we had a chance to meet at the first India Design Forum in New Delhi earlier this month—believes true luxury is living in a seamless world. A world in which objects aren’t obstacles. A world where products rise to the occasion to please you. Like the display of the new iPad, which has more pixels than the naked eye can see. Or Rashid’s own TV-Tub, a bathtub designed for the Korean brand Saturn Bath, which comes built in with a waterproof LCD screen with full-range television and Internet services. Priced upwards of a few lakhs, it’s made not with precious metal but lowly resin. The technology isn’t particularly elevated either. It commands the price it does for the sheer genius of its design.
Columnists Sunil Khilnani and Radha Chadha comment on India’s “more is more” aesthetic code; they ponder how it will hold up against the clean lines and fluid forms that are redefining good design and high luxury across the world. Design should be efficient and purposeful, only then can it pave the way for true luxury. Chadha offers her hypothesis in a quote by the legendary German designer Dieter Rams: “Good design is as little design as possible.”
Karim Rashid, the Bachelard-spouting design guru—whom we had a chance to meet at the first India Design Forum in New Delhi earlier this month—believes true luxury is living in a seamless world. A world in which objects aren’t obstacles. A world where products rise to the occasion to please you. Like the display of the new iPad, which has more pixels than the naked eye can see. Or Rashid’s own TV-Tub, a bathtub designed for the Korean brand Saturn Bath, which comes built in with a waterproof LCD screen with full-range television and Internet services. Priced upwards of a few lakhs, it’s made not with precious metal but lowly resin. The technology isn’t particularly elevated either. It commands the price it does for the sheer genius of its design.
Bedtime magic: Karim Rashid’s Rullo is a convertible bed created for the Scandinavian brand Softline. Courtesy Karim Rashid
Design is the new frontier of luxury.In
this special issue to complement Mint’s ongoing Luxury Conference in
Mumbai (23-24 March), we asked our contributors to report and ruminate
on where design meets luxury.Columnists Sunil Khilnani and Radha Chadha comment on India’s “more is more” aesthetic code; they ponder how it will hold up against the clean lines and fluid forms that are redefining good design and high luxury across the world. Design should be efficient and purposeful, only then can it pave the way for true luxury. Chadha offers her hypothesis in a quote by the legendary German designer Dieter Rams: “Good design is as little design as possible.”
The Dining Throne by Gunjan Gupta, whose works will be showcased at the Milan Furniture Fair next month.
In
one of our interview features, Dutch trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort
says India needs urgently to create its own design language, especially
in industrial and craft design. And it is in the retelling of
traditional design narratives in a contemporary language that this can
be envisaged.Indian designers such as Gunjan Gupta and the
Bangalore-based furniture outfit bent by design are speaking in this new
design pidgin already. Pieces from Gupta’s lifestyle furniture, product
and art installation label Wrap will be part of the curated section of
the Milan Furniture Fair from 17-22 April. They will also be part of
Sotheby’s ‘Inspired by India’ exhibition in London in May. Evidently,
her India-meets-the-world stories in gold and silver are dazzling the
world. And it is young designers like her who will be the grammarians of
this new language of luxury.
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