Retail Resolutions, Part 2

 As I was pondering my own resolution at the turn of the year, it happened to line up with one I have been hoping retailers might adopt as we near the end of this fascinating decade--“Less, but better.”

The quote is a few years old, but has never been more relevant than it is today and comes from a design hero of mine: the great Dieter Rams.

Imagine a retail future that is founded on this idea. A future that eschews the disposable in favor of things that can actually last and where consumerism flourishes against a backdrop of responsibility. A future where the American shopper will pay a fair price for these better quality goods, but also where our pocketbooks will be liberated as we finally break our addiction to cheap junk.

No longer will the American retail landscape be over-stored and over-stocked, rather a new breed of niche brands will emerge producing products that people love and cherish.

In this future, you will buy new things because they are just that--new. You will replace things when they become obsolete, not because they have broken or worn out. Ask yourself when was the last time you bought something you could pass on to your children, and it becomes starkly clear how bad things have gotten.

Ram’s ethos has been influencing me for a while now and it started to change the way that I shop and the things that I shop for. My favorite Web site in the world--www.manufactum.com--has become the portal through which I have accessed this new breed of best-in-class products and I have never looked back. 

American retail holds its future in its hands and the signs of a new movement are beginning to emerge.  I was truly inspired by the tale of Trudy Sullivan’s new product strategy at Talbots, cutting through the clutter to the core classics that made that brand great and reinterpreting them with a fresh twist for today’s Talbots woman.

Perhaps instead of the knee jerk of deep discounting, or more relentless attempts to cut the price of the goods we produce, we should be shooting for something akin to Rams’ ethos: for quality, for durability and for designs that can stand the test of time.

As John Ruskin put it over a century ago: "There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper"...a sentiment echoed by Isaac Mizrahi in last week’s WWD interview focused on his new role as creative director of Liz Claiborne: “In times of financial crisis, you don’t necessarily look for the cheapest thing; you look for the most valuable.”

This New Year feels like one filled with ideas of possibility and who knows, maybe this would be one possibility we could all celebrate.

--Christian Davies, Guest Blogger

Comments

[Christian Davies]

Thanks for the recent responses...Skip's sums up another of Mr Ram's great quotes as well...

Good design is making something intelligible and memorable. Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.

Something "meaningful" really does have a unique sense of value I think.

Christian

[Daniel Nelson @ Vitsoe]

Great article.
At Vitsoe, we've always followed our designer, Dieter Rams' philosophy.
We totally agree that this year we need to be seeing more of this, or is that less? :-)

Also great lovers of Manufactum over here.

[Skip Anderson]

Fascinating post, Christian.

It's time for retailers to shift from the commoditization model of merchandise assortment to the specialty model. The consumer does not need, and I believe in the current economy, will not WANT, disposal products which scream "sameness" from every corner of the retail marketplace. I use the word "specialty" not as in "specialty retailer" but in the sense of selling something special and unique that has value for it's very specialness.

[Christian]

Thanks so much for the comment!

To my mind at least the whole point of something like Manufactum has never been just about the price. Rather about the desire to return to a culture of quality. I too have been shocked by the price of certain items there (check out the bathroom scales!), but the things that I'm drawn to there are often simple, inexpensive and built to last. The wine opener I bought from them cost less than anything I could find stateside and it's really a wonderful piece of design: all stainless and doesn't just work great but is satisfying to use.

The questions you raise are I think very relevant to our times though. Is it better to buy a $100 ball-point that will last a lifetime or to throw hundreds of disposable ones into landfills? And how does that question change when times are tight?

And I'm in total agreement about re-use. I just wish there were more things we COULD actually repurpose and re-use. Tough to reuse the truly broken...

For what its worth Manufactum does kind of sneak up on you. I was similarly skeptical when my brother sent me my first catalogue, it took a couple of purchases to convince me and now I'm hooked. Maybe those socks will be in your future after all? And if they don't work out they look to me like the perfect pair to recycle into mittens...

[Hdtex]

I'm not sure what sort of rarified world Mr. Christian lives in, but his Manufactum world of a $32.00 pair of cotton socks, a $100.00 ball-point pen, and $150.00 pair of mittens somehow doesn't jibe with the reality of a crashing economy, retailers closing by the thousands and 11 million newly unemployed.

It does however look alot like the world that caused the melt down to begin with.

I recycle, reuse, repurpose, and look for vintage or antique items if at all possible. It keeps the life-cycle going.

It seems to mirror (at least for me) the real economic situation most of use are facing. I also don't have the anquish of who to pass on my $32.00 socks to when I die...