“Ah. Luxury.”
"When will men stop and think of luxury on the neckline?"
What leads to a change of taste? When will men decided to trade up? And, what is the definition of the always-changing idea of luxury that we all aspire?
Noticing the missing of luxurious jewelry on men’s necklines, the fact that they are mostly shy about showing off – a prosperity denial mentality and dislike to be related to ideas they despise, e.g. heals; makeup, diamonds, etc., I drew a mid-way conclusion as well as an assumption, “Men may like to have luxury on their necklines but are not able to embrace the idea itself”.
Carole Forêt - a luxurious necklace label for men using diamond and gold/platinum - a “high resistance” category- was created intentionally to challenge and explore “what is luxury”, “at what point men will stop and trade up to the luxurious platform”.
By first created 2 different sets of name cards, I challenged a new concept of luxury. Feedbacks from tests confirmed that luxury extended further than the product itself but a higher personal aspiration of being alive. Based on this, prototypes of necklaces, packaging and most importantly a presentation, which goes against today’s store concept and ecommerce - private viewing sessions on an intimate one on one basis were developed as my final artifact.
From the results of my final testing, I believe today, in the homogenization leading to disintegrating identities, in the disconnections through digital space in which we are losing the sense of life, men secretly return to a desire of themselves. Luxury, brings back values, dimensions of ourselves and the simple basic feeling of being alive with senses wild open. It is an intimate, sophisticated, hidden pleasure one has been chasing. It chases other than what is disclosed, get out of the fiction of what most people define it. It is the certainty of the experience’s uniqueness, perhaps it is the voice telling never-heard stories, it is the perfume we never experienced, it is the connections that penetrate the pureness of beings, It’s the engagement of the non repetitive. It is never a surplus, it is the rare thing.
While men don't like to be related to things they don't feel home, re-engaging men to a different environment possibly breaks the stubbornness of their rooted habitual perception of such item and they are happy to take on a new angle in their way.
Carefully control the way in communicating luxury through design which provides the awareness of deserving and self-definition, it allows design to act as a medium to connect men to their aspiration, an opportunity to reconstruct oneself by “acquiring meanings”. It doesn’t have to be confined by visual/store display; it can go further as in experience uniqueness. At this point then, will be a huge step closer to have them stop and desire such medium, despite their habitual behaviors, beliefs and mentalities are still considered quite a resistance to a change of taste.
