What is Techno-Luxury Design-Thinking?

I’ve been asked this so many times that I thought it best to share here.

Let’s start with “Techno-Luxury”. The words “technology” and “luxury” were mashed together as early as 2007 by Timex via their short product line of TX Technoluxury watches. These were analog quartz watches, designed in Germany, with retrograde displays (where the hands move back and forth in an arc), and lots of hands. Like nicer luxury watches, it also included details such as sapphire crystals, four motors, legible faces, deployant buckles, enameled crowns, and nicely finished cases. The 3 series featured perpetual calendars (that would automatically adjust for leap years and short months like February, a second time zone display, a stopwatch, and an electronic compass.

Nine years later, the term has a slightly different meaning. The union of technology and luxury has not been a smooth relationship. Style and luxury is losing a battle with technology. Technology is trying its best to be fashionable, but failing miserably as watches become cold devices slapped onto our wrists and the market calls them “smart watches”.

We see a saturated sea of technology tracking our steps, our heart rate, and the number of hours we sleep — all inaccurately of course. We have become rude to those that keep our company as we glance down at our wrist when a notification is pushed to us. We plug these devices into the wall to charge instead of in our drawer or on our vanity. We take a shower with it, sleep with it, and exercise with it. It’s the only device you are encouraged to wear 24/7. Yet, after 8 years of designing the same thing but in another flavour, we are only starting to see Style and Design emerge, as they have with real and personal pieces.

Google teamed up with Diane Von Furstenburg, Tori Burch with Fitbit, Rebecca Minkoff with CASE, Opening Ceremony with Intel, and Apple with Hermès. Startups such as Misfit Wearables, CUFF, Ringly, Altruis, Ear-O-Smart, and SIREN, battling it out amongst themselves — some partnering with jewelry brands like Swarovski, or with manufacturers such as Richline Group. We’re slapping style on top of and around the technology — that’s what Techno-Luxury has become.

What of the craftsmanship, the details, the materials, and the limited editions? What of the heirloom heritage of brands and their products? What of the incremental value over time? What of the stories and history that make a luxury item so precious? What of the innate purpose that does not expire season after season?

That is where Design Thinking plays a crucial role. Understanding the customer’s emotional ties to a brand and to its products and that value only increases over time. There is never end-of-life, but perhaps the act of giving to a son, or a daughter. As technology improves rapidly, and the demand for more fashionable or stylistic products increases, how can we ensure technology is discreet, or better yet, absolutely invisible? The answer: design from the customer, not for. Observe their reactions to trends and how they experience trends, understand their relationships with others, and empathize as they move from one life to another. Take advantage of affordances and only create new ones if it solves an unrealized frustration. Delight and surprise around behaviour and learnings.

This is where the path of innovation begins.

Design, Design Thinking, Fashion, Techno-Luxury, Trends, XD