70% of the world’s population now own a mobile phone, some further interesting and alarming statistics regarding the ongoing growth of mobile phone usage
Mobile: The Technology Taking Over the World
Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.
PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.
In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”
The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris
70% of the world’s population now own a mobile phone, some further interesting and alarming statistics regarding the ongoing growth of mobile phone usage
70% of the world’s population now own a mobile phone, some further interesting and alarming statistics regarding the ongoing growth of mobile phone usage
Cellular mobile phone technology has now existed for over forty years, in 1973 it was the Motorola DynaTAC, the world’s premiere handheld mobile device, which weighed one kilogram, had a battery life of 35 minutes and cost $4,000. In 2010 it is the iPhone 4, weighing in at 137 grams, lasting up to 300 hours and often procured under contract with no monetary outlay at all. In a little over three years, Apple have sold almost 60 million handsets.
As phones get smaller, lighter, cheaper and more functional, more and more people are involving themselves, their businesses and their children, with the technology. So much so that children in 2010, are more likely to own a mobile phone than a book, in the United States alone, nine out of ten men, women and children own a mobile device.
Mobile is now a multi billion dollar industry, in 2009 $4.2 billion was spent on Smartphone applications, this figure is estimated at $29.5bn in 2013. Morgan Stanley suggest that in the next five years more people will connect to the internet via mobile than they will using a computer, solidifying the need for luxury marketers to take this increasingly popular media into their communications consideration.
Creative Strategist, Digital
Sophie Doran is currently Senior Creative Strategist, Digital at Karla Otto. Prior to this role, she was the Paris-based editor-in-chief of Luxury Society. Prior to joining Luxury Society, Sophie completed her MBA in Melbourne, Australia, with a focus on luxury brand dynamics and leadership, whilst simultaneously working in management roles for several luxury retailers.