The other week we briefly swapped our designer chairs for designer jeans, our crazy student sideboards for crazy student hats and and our designer bookcases for designer handbags: It was Berlin Fashion Week.
The short busman's holiday in the German capital was principally concerned with a new, and still relatively secret, project but we also wanted to take the opportunity to compare and contrast the designer furniture and designer clothes industries.
Sure they are both about brands, star designers and market share.
But what we miss in the designer clothing industry is the innovation.
WHAT scream an offended ostentation of materials engineers in our direction. Sorry. You MISS the INNOVATION!!!!
OK, badly explained.
Aside from new materials, we miss the innovation.
A pair of jeans are a pair jeans regardless of where the pockets are.
Which makes the launch of most "new " jeans simply presentation over substance.
"These jeans are good because they were designed by her that used to be in that band that were formed in that reality show!!!"
"These jeans are better than those jeans because these are straighter cut. And stop at the ankle"
If you think we over-exaggerate just ask yourself why the editors of fashion magazines are celebrities in their own right and the editors of design magazines are well paid specialist journalists?
The devil may sit on a Vitra chair; but no one is going to make a film about it!
We're not going to pretend that there aren't designer furniture producers who also place presentation above substance - but the majority are principally concerned with improving and further developing existing furniture types. Building more value into the product
We just didn't see anyone in Berlin trying to improve or further develop trousers.
Where we do feel more at home in the designer fashion world is amongst those sections and products where innovation has a little more room. Designer accessories rather than designer clothes. As it were.
Such as handbags.
A new Prada handbag, for example, doesn't have to impress us with the newness of its material or the colour of its fabric - just with its form, functionality and, perhaps most importantly, that it is somehow a further development from previous Prada handbags.
Much like a new Kartell chair.
It's going to be plastic. But why should we buy it?
They're trousers. Nice colour.
And just don't get us started on "trend analysts"
And so we returned from the stifling bustle of Berlin more convinced than ever than in the world of clothes design the true creativity rests in ye goode olde wordsmithery and not in the tailoring.
And wondering if Kartell will ever produce designer handbags?
