Next time you’re at the bar, at a friend’s house, or taking care of business on the bus, look around and count all the cell phones. You will often calculate more than you realise; All the tech guys in the bar will be scraping data from Hinge or the little kids on the bus will be judging Bluish.
In the 16 years since the beginning of the (now ended) smartphone boom, phones have gone from conspicuous, clicky calculators to completely negligible shadows, sleek black boxes that fade into the background. It’s surprising that we’re here now. Not so long ago, in the early 2000s, cell phones were bold, personal, and often “girly.”
“I am thinking Sex and the City “These characters were perhaps defined by the type of phone they had,” Emily Huggard, an assistant professor of fashion communications at Parsons School of Design, told The Daily Beast..
In a 2003 episode, designer-obsessed Carrie chats on a dazzling pink Motorola flip phone; It’s a tabloid favorite, as bleach blonde and dazzling heiress Paris Hilton is often photographed holding the same. “There was you Devil Wears PradaThe 2006 rom-com in which fashion mogul Miranda Priestly coos at a blade-gray Motorola Razr. [the cellphone] Huggard added that it is positioned as a women’s accessory.
“I actually have a vintage Vuitton bag that has a special little pocket for a cell phone,” former Vogue writer and vintage fashion columnist Liana Satenstein told The Daily Beast. “There is definitely [marketing] It signals ‘This is for women’. You must have a cell phone.”
Motorola confirmed this notion in an email to The Daily Beast. A Motorola spokesperson said the 2004 Razr V3 was “a fashion statement, a form of self-expression.” “It was one of the first devices to become a cultural icon.”
Text Objection
Before phones became fashionable, they were ridiculous. American manufacturer Motorola invented the first commercial mobile phone, the genderless DynaTAC 8000X, in 1973. In 1984, the 2.5-pound note, valued at $3,995 (or 19 iPhones when adjusted for today’s inflation), hit the market in full force. 13.
For the next few years, cell phones remained around this frightening price and weight; The popular 1987 NEC 9a would cost about $7,600 today, while a wired 1991 Siemens C5 C-Netz weighed just over five pounds. Things got livelier and more portable in the early 1990s, when innovations like the lithium battery helped create the first camera-ready model: the compact 1993 Swatch TCE 123. which came in clear, red and icy blue, midnight blue and caffeinated teal.
In 2000, the first year the Pew Research Center cataloged cellphone ownership in the United States, 53 percent of adults had a cellphone. But phones continued to get cuter and more affordable (the Razr V3 cost $449 at the time), and by 2009 communications devices had become so standard that even 72 percent of teenage girls owned a phone. They also used these devices more frequently than men to call and text friends every day.
Major manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung and Motorola have jumped on this trend, capturing celebrity endorsements and high fashion collaborations. In 2004, Nokia launched “a stylish collection inspired by the flamboyant and bold styles of the 1920s”, tech blog New Atlas he wrote at the time. This included a phone with a finger-length “lipstick” that Paris Hilton would surgically attach to her ear, according to bloggers.
Paris Hilton at the MOTORAZR Launch in Japan
June Sato / Getty Images
In 2005, Motorola partnered with Naomi Campbell to sell her hot pink Razr V3 in the same floral pink box as her perfume Cat Deluxe. In the same year, a seven-page Vogue The spread featured Samsung’s limited edition E315 model, designed in collaboration with New York designer Anna Sui. The $299 phone came with Sui Rouge lipstick and featured a lacquered butterfly motif with lavender cell appeal.
“Cellphones have become ubiquitous accessories; every woman has a cellphone with her,” Sui said. Vogue. “The woman carrying my phone is extremely feminine with a rock and roll style. “He is known for his originality.”
Some companies have carried this ethos to this day. Drew Blackard, Samsung’s vice president of mobile product management, talked about the new Thom Browne edition Galaxy Z Fold5 and the Maison Margiela edition during a conversation with The Daily Beast.
“Samsung is headquartered in Seoul, the fashion capital of the world,” Blackard said. “People really want to show off their style and individuality, just like they do with a pair of shoes.”
Motorola, which relaunched the Razr as a foldable smartphone in 2019 and launched the Razr+ in 2023, also echoes this idea. “Through all our past, present and future partnerships, we reach individuals and brands. […] We’re ready to “flip the script with us,” a Motorola spokesperson said, “from Naomi Campbell and Paris Hilton in the early 2000s to Christian Cowan, The Blonds, Amelia Gray, Livvy Dunne, Kim Petras and more more recently.”
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But in practice, most people’s phones these days are basically the same. They all look the same and are boring in appearance. iPhone influencer and expert Niels, also known as AppleDsign, told The Daily Beast that knockoff designs have been a problem since the 2014 iPhone 6. “Because this was one of the most popular smartphones ever” and yet “with curved edges and [layout of the] The camera was pretty basic.”
iPhone 14 and 13 are now by far the best sellers in the world. “It’s just a square block and there’s no variety,” Satenstein said. “There is nothing interesting in the marketing of mobile phones these days because everyone has one. Just like a baby with a binky.
Other popular smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel also share the iPhone’s simple design; this is a long way from the fun version from 2003. It’s disappointing that mobile phones have once appropriated and profited from girlhood to trade femininity for something. cold and contrasting, impersonal and empty to chase a trend. When you factor in Apple’s predominantly white and male workforce, this design change seems like yet another example of women being excluded from tech.
Realistically, any useful technology needs to be gender blind. But as smartphones become more ingrained in our lives (“kind of an extension of your being,” Huggard said), people need to be able to relate to them.
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The capacity of smartphones is constantly expanding, just like the universe. With each expansion, we allow smartphones to define a new feature of our lives. We love how phones direct us to our next destination, plan what to have for dinner, and answer any questions we have.
For all our whining about blue light, we love having greedy and endless access to everything. The desire to always have more has made smartphones an indispensable technology that is as vital as a warm piece of the pink brain. Using a phone now feels less like poking cold, hard metal and more like moving a human muscle. Smartphones have become a real part of us, and we have become a part of them with our data and usage. So if smartphones are to be human anymore, they need to be as diverse and vibrant as the people who carry them.
At least some companies understand this. “Almost 100 percent of adult Americans now have a smartphone,” Blackard said. “From our perspective, our opinion on this issue is as follows; [cellphones are] An experience everyone has […] How can we make this unique to each individual?” There may be a time and place for the iPhone’s hostile metal, but the pink glow is a good place to start again.
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