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Design For Life

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Long before Jonathan Ive there was Dieter Rams. Before Apple there was Braun. I still have this alarm clock. It is unmistakably Braun, looks cool, totally practical and never goes wrong.

What classic design do you cherish? It could be a machine, an item of clothing, anything really.

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Comments

    • You know what James? I really wanted one – very badly – but it was the rich kids that got them. They were bloody expensive in 1971 let me tell you. As well, my Dad saw them as a sign of the end of civilisation as he knew it. That and Coca Cola and suede shoes.

  3. Easy, my Mondaine Swiss Railway Watch. coming up for a decade old and on its fifth battery and strap etc. Recently went through the washing machine on a 40 cycle and is still working just fine, though

  8. Automotive Design – thats what makes me salivate.
    Examples:
    Ford Granada Mark 1
    http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t490/Rigid_Digit/fordgranadamk1.jpg

    Triumph Stag
    http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t490/Rigid_Digit/Triumph-Stag_2929511b_zpsveeeoelh.jpg

    Jaguar XJ
    http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t490/Rigid_Digit/jaguar-xj6-l-4_zpsp82xsrpz.jpg

    Never owned any of the above (probably not likely to), but I do own a Jag X-Type which follows the look of the classic XJ (even if it is a Mondeo underneath)

    You can stick your Ferraris, Lambourghinis and all those other snorty loud supercars – these were the posters that adorned my bedroom wall as a kid (along with Iron Maiden, Samantha Fox and that tennis player scratching her bum)

    • did you get it done properly – at a Tag dealer – or just a high street cobbler type? Mine needs a new battery and I’m loathe to splash the cash in a poncy jeweller’s.

      • The first time at a proper dealer as they reseal the back to make it watertight again.
        Subsequently just at high street place at less half the price on the grounds I’m never going to dive to 200 metres!

        • Resealing and pressure testing is par for anything supposedly water proof/resistant, but my Tag lasted about 2 years, stopped, battery replaced, then they realised it was seized, upon which I was told “of course, they need a full service every two years”. I did that once, then I gave up. It sits in a bedside drawer unloved.
          Then I went for a Citizen which was very disappointing (completely unusable crown), and since then a cheap Lorus which hasn’t missed a beat in over 5 years.

  11. Two from me – my Swiss Army knife and my Bialetti stove-top coffee maker. I use them both every day and can’t imagine them performing their respective tasks better.

  13. With half a mind to diffusing the testosterone on this thread (amps, cars, rocket launchers…), I will venture to add the Le Creuset 30cm casserole.

    We use ours several times a week. It’s thirty years old and a design that’s maybe twice as old. Indestructible and magically the right size and shape for cooking pretty much everything.

  17. A Fred Perry cotton pique polo shirt.

    First had one as a 12 year old in the last knockings of the Mod revival in ’82. Still wearing them now.

    Often copied, never bettered.

  19. I too had that Braun alarm clock, had it for years and then lost it.

    Here are a few from me.

    – Airfix models.
    – Hornby train sets.
    – Ordnance Survey maps.
    – The old Penguins with orange/white covers and line drawings. They’ve lasted and age well.
    – Batsford images on those old guidebooks.

    I also have a pair of Church’s brogue shoes which are an absolute delight to wear (so they should be given the price), they feel like slippers and look very stylish, feel like a right Major Thompson.

    • I worked with someone who wasn’t particularly wealthy but he insisted on wearing Church’s brogues. He maintained that putting them on a shoe tree and looking after them will mean that they last for decades – thereby justifying their price.

      Not for me. I would neglect them.

      • Before I became a lawyer I managed to convince a fairly well established partner in the property sector to go for coffee with me so that I could pick his brains as to what the career really involved.

        He was a lovely chap, spoke to me for a while and gave me two or three pieces of advice. I can’t remember any of them now (particularly as I’m not a property lawyer), except that he told me that in order to be taken seriously I should invest in a good pair of Church’s.

        Bollocks to that. Anyone with more respect for footwear than intellect doesn’t deserve decent legal representation.

        • That is an idiotic thing for him to have said, but they are comfortable and further suit me because I largely have the intellect of an adolescent. But at least I’m no city slicker.

    • I don’t smoke anymore – nearly 2 years solid without a lapse now, longest time since I was 14. But I still gaze longingly at Zippos. Bloody gorgeous things.

  25. The Jigger.
    One way up, its a sinle measure. Other way up is a double – either way a gaurenteed way of ensuring exact measure, and hence optimum enjoyment of your chosen spirit
    http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t490/Rigid_Digit/25_50_ml_uk_jigger_zps2a5nsr3f.jpg

    The corkscrew is a generic design classic in its own right, but the Waiters Friend variant is like the Swiss Army knives of Corkscrews – it does everything you want it to.
    http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t490/Rigid_Digit/bar-craft-waiter_zpsuhdulyjb.jpg

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