F  L  A  U  N  T

   Marc newson’s look is not as glamorously jetson as you’d expect it to be. He has the long, slightly unkempt hair and patchy beard of a free-spirited artist. His white linen pants are loose. His reddish tee has a clean but non-descript print. However, the shoes are somewhat striking: white derbys with a bright yellow welt. Perhaps after the red-eye from Australia to L.A., shoes are the subtle expression of glamour that one of the world’s most recognized commercial designers allows himself. Yet, for the guy who designed the iconic Lockheed Lounge, the highest-priced contemporary design piece to date, auctioned for $2.1 million in 2010, Newson’s profile would necessitate the slightest nod in glamour’s direction. On this particular day, he’s not slaving away in his work studio, covered in fiberglass. He’s actually sitting in the TASCHEN Beverly Hills bookstore talking about his latest book, Marc Newson: Works, which is selling at $1,000 a copy (a version which is slinging for 6k if you fancy the Micarta slipcase edition). He calls it “the real definitive catalogue” of his body of work, which ranges from concept cars, to rocking horses, to nickel coated surfboards, to hairdryers, to restaurants, to passenger planes for space travel. Newson shifts his weight uncomfortably when asked which is his most glamorous piece of work. “I’m not sure ‘glamorous’ is the right word, I rather that they were seen as ‘elegant.’” It’s much more about the pragmatic for Newson. “I tell people I’m a gun for hire, a troubleshooter, a problem solver. Companies come to me because they have a problem that needs to be solved.” But he does appreciate when he and his work—of spare lines and rocket-worthy contours—are placed on the continuum of famous designers of mid-century moderne: Eames, Teague, Bel Geddes, Loewy. And yet, Newson is also restless with people’s conceptions of Modernity, Modern design processes, materials, and technologies. “In a lot of cases it’s just a reinterpretation of something from the past. There really are no modern materials, processes. What is Modern is appropriating materials from one industry into another … the reappropriation of technology: that’s Modern.” Technology talks. Newson, somewhat ruffled, greets his ringing wife mid interview. “Hi. Hi, how are you?” She’s just arrived in LA to join him, and Newson agrees to meet where they’ll be staying, the Chemosphere. It is a fitting accommodation. One of the world’s top designers so often associated with a retro futuristic, space travel sensibility, should be staying in the John Lautner-designed octagonal spaceship house atop a pole in the Hollywood Hills.                     And again, mentioning the Chemosphere is perhaps cause to return to the idea of glamour, for instance, the Qantas first class lounges he’s designed. “They are pretty glamorous, but they’re also pretty functional. Anything I’ve done with the aviation industry is super, super pragmatic and functional.” He reconsiders, “If they are glamorous, then that’s a great attribute. One of the things I wanted to do with the aviation industry was interject a little glamour into travel. The transportation industry has made air travel a pretty horrible prospect… With the death of the Concord there is not that much glamour left.”       Still, innovators run in jet-setting packs. Three copies of Marc Newson: Works sit on the bookstore floor, Post-it noted for shipping to Jonathan Ive, Newson’s good friend and the lead designer at Apple, responsible for the MacBook, iPhone, and iPad—designs that have had more than modest commercial success. His iPhone likely excluded, Newson says the masses are generally settling for “an enormous amount of mediocrity—there’s a lot of ugliness. The masses mostly don’t know that design exists,” Newson says. Parallel to Marie Antoinette’s point of eating cake, when they arrive, and buy designed products in droves and design books in handfuls, let them, for they are hungry.    * * * Written by: N.P. Train