What If Things Actually Lasted? Free the Spirit
Noisy Decent Graphics This is my favourite shirt. I bought it with some money my Granny gave me for my 18th birthday. That makes it 13 years old. I bought it in a shop in Bath called John Anthony for £75.
Wearing it the other day, several things struck me.
1. What the hell was I doing spending £75 on a shirt! 13 years ago £75 must have been the price of a Mini, or a parking space in Chelsea or something. I'd wouldn't dream of spending £75 on a shirt now. I guess we didn't have the £4.99 H&M classic in 1993.
2. Secondly, it's 13 years old. 13 bloody years. That's almost half my bloody life. Almost. I'd be surprised if I owned anything else (that I'd bought) that was 13 years old. Certainly I don't own any teenage clothes. Do you? Look around you now. Do you have anything that you've bought that's 13 years old to hand?
It was designed by Paul Smith. Strangely it was also made in England. You don't see that very often nowadays do you?
So, it was made locally, very low clothes miles. It was designed and sold locally. It's lasted 13 years and it was very expensive. Can we learn lessons about how we're going to have to design things for the future?
I went to a meeting once where the client asked me how the long the logo was supposed to last. Three years? Two years? Longer?
I had to stop myself imploding.
I keep coming back to this Porsche quote. What if things actually lasted? What if things were designed to last 13 years instead of breaking down after two years so that you have to buy a new one?
What if fashion didn't change every season in such a military fashion? What if 60% of everything was still in use today? What if you had to pay more, a lot more, for things that lasted and didn't break and were still useful 13 years from now?
Would that be better? [Noisy Decent Graphics]
9:09:33 PM 
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