NOTICED: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PHILIPPE STARCK

(First published, En route, 2007)

Lest you think he’s merely a household name, Philippe Starck is a bona fide style guru. The same enfant terrible who brought us the boutique hotel before we knew enough to want to stay in one, his latest effort to bring design off its high horse is steering the coming tidal wave of branded designer lofts (his first Canadian project, a joint venture with Freed developments, is Seventy5 at 75 Portland in Toronto). In short, he’s one-man style revolution in ripped jeans and bedhead. And he has a lot to say (with his hands, a Gallic shrug of his shoulders, and irrepressible humour) about what’s next.

 

Starck’s hitlist:

  1. “Twenty-five years ago, people knew fashion. They wanted to wear Jean-Paul Gaultier and Chanel. Now that people are more interested in design, there will be design victims just like fashion victims.
  2. The present system of fashion is too fast. One year you are a monster because you wear fur, the next year you are fabulous. That’s why fashion will go down and leave a place for concepts with more longevity.
  3. Right now we are witnessing the comeback of barbaria. Urgent change is needed everywhere, from politics to the environment. I try to make design the most rebellious, subversive, political act I can. But design is so slow compared to the urgency. To be useful, it’s better to be a journalist, a politician or maybe a singer. Every chair, every lamp is just a letter of one word.
  4. I don’t speak to an age, or a place. The world now is made up of tribes. I speak to the same tribe in Toronto, Tokyo or Milano. It is a different parallel world. The world is becoming more diverse, not by countries, but by tribe.
  5. Our civilization was created to make us better, not make more products. We are ruining ourselves with more and more stuff. I turn down stars and celebrities every day who want me to design their houses. They want to live inside my brain. I am free and I am light. I never read about design, only about biology and literature. I have 20 houses around the world and 18 of them are in places on the water, without cars. This is how I have the time and the concentration to go to the real subject.  The most positive act right now is to say ‘No’.
  6. There is no future for design. Everything is getting smaller and more powerful. First the computer was the size of a house, then a room, then a suitcase, then a book, then a credit card. Soon it will be invisible.
  7. In 20 years, design will be bionic. It will take place inside of the body. And your designer will be your fitness coach.