'Pink walls and chandeliers don't feel right. We've had enough of frivolity'

How does design respond to a bleak economic landscape? Philippe Starck, Sir Terence Conran and Kirstie Allsopp debate the future of their industries in these lean times. Report by Caroline Roux

Sir Terence Conran, Kirstie Allsopp and Phillippe Starck. Photograph: David Levene

What is the role of the designer now, when we are taking a beating both economically and environmentally?

Philippe Starck There are other priorities now. Perhaps in 30 years it will be interesting to come back and speak about the beauty of a chair or a lamp, but today that seems a bit obscene. Even during the time it takes to do this interview, people will die from a lack of water. We must try to stop design for design's sake. Design has always been political, and now more than ever we focus on new goals, which I call democratic ecology. Everyone talks about ecology, but we need to make it happen, not speak about it.

Terence Conran While I partially agree with Philippe, I still believe in promoting intelligent - I prefer that word to good - design that can help improve people's lives. In economic hard times or not, it's still the same.

Kirstie Allsopp I hope the current economic crisis will lead to people looking for longevity. In an average house I see an enormous turnaround of stuff. There are plenty of homes where nothing is more than five years old. What happened to the things that preceded them? What happened to the possessions of previous generations? It's almost like people had no parents or grandparents. Nothing has been passed on.

PS Longevity is something we really to need to think about. We must bring back the idea of heritage and "transfer" things, not just put them in the garbage. The garbage was a trend of the past 30 or 40 years. Now - no more garbage ...

TC ... which means no more plastic.

PS But there are many things made of plastic, and we don't know how to make them in any other way. You can't make the sort of chairs we make now out of recycled plastic - there is no resistance, no intelligence left in the material. So what will we use?

TC Wood is perfectly sustainable, and I will certainly use it. But the big problem behind all this, of course, is employment. If we design everything for longevity and my shoes last two or three generations, what are all our hands going to do?

PS We need to stop thinking about ownership. We need to look at the idea of renting rather than owning.

KA For the British, renting just about anything is alien. We'd need to go through a huge cultural shift.

PS I mean more that when you buy something, you are obliged to give it back. Like we do with bottles. In the future, you buy the chair, you use the chair and, after 20 years, you bring it back.

KA I go to local auction rooms whenever I can. You see things there that cost 25% of what they would have cost 20 years ago. Last week I bought a 1900s wardrobe for £600. It's fantastic - beautifully made and inlaid, and no one else wanted it.

This comes back to taste. Does it change when the economy changes?

TC In the 70s, when I was doing Habitat and it was the time of the three-day week, we started a range called Basics. We went through the standard house creating necessary things that were good value and simple. We kept it going for a few years and franchised it out to a Japanese store called Seibu. They eventually opened stores called Basics, and later these became Muji. So, you see, some of the best things come out of hard times. We're probably entering a time of simpler things now. Pink walls and chandeliers don't feel right. I think we've had enough of frivolity for a while.

PS We can't afford to keep changing taste so fast. Let's hope fashion in design will disappear. There is a lack of respect when the media says, "You must be dressed in pink", and some poor girl dresses in pink, and six months later when it says, "You must dress in green", she's a monster in her pink dress. We can't accept this kind of manipulation.

What would you invest in now?

KA If we lived in a warmer climate, investing in property might be a completely different thing. But look, it's miserable today - you need shelter. For me, having a home is everything.

TC I'd invest in wine. I can look at it and stroke it. And things that improve the quality of life, like art. Philippe, of course, collects houses.

PS I have a sickness for buying houses. [He refuses to divulge how many he owns.] I don't consider that an investment; it's an addiction.

Have we learned any lessons when it comes to design?

TC The population is much better educated about their homes. They're taking things much more seriously when it comes to the furniture, and the house itself. They are concerned with ecological issues.

KA The thing that always strikes me in people's houses is the number of cookery books. I'd like to see people become as confident about furniture and decoration as they have about food.

PS I think Mydeco [design website mydeco.com] represents this, too. A young guy in London can paint his chair by hand, put it on Mydeco, and a woman in Australia will say, "It's so nice, much better than Starck." And she asks him to design something for her. There will be no more superstar designers like me. The next years will be the time of the microstar. It's our duty, people like me and Terence and Kirstie, to help this new solution along. To make the revolution happen.

Sir Terence Conran, Philippe Starck and Kirstie Allsopp are all on the board of mydeco.com

www.guardian.co.uk

Comments

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Thanks for your comments, Stephen! Yeah, I've considered all these things,
and did try to talk to him about it. But he shied away from telling me any
good reasons soooo..... I'll really never know! But it's entertaining now
(not back then!) to ruminate on reasons why. Thanks for your added thoughts!
;)

Posted by: discount coach handbags | December 31, 2010 at 04:03 AM

One thing that confuses me about this video and related comments is the suggestion that the audience is 'pre-empting' the pentatonic scale. While they certainly do pre-empt the major third, which is fascinating in itself (and i suspect there are myriad theories as to why this happens, both cultural and physical), all other notes in the pentatonic scale are introduced by Bobby first, before the audience sings them. Therefore, the audience is merely replicating the notes on demand, and in different octave registers, so I fail to see how this demonstration shows the "deep connection between the pentatonic scale and the human brain"

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