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Well, this is insane. This week Bang & Olufsen revealed their new Speaker Bag, designed in collaboration with fashion house Balenciaga. The portable speaker, "Crafted to resemble the iconic sculptural form of Balenciaga's handbags," is freaking milled from a single block of aluminum.
"Each piece is milled from a single block of solid aluminum, before being pearl- blasted, anodized and hand-polished at Bang & Olufsen's Factory 5 in Struer, Denmark over a period of several days to create the perfect satin finish. A door at the rear of the speaker opens to reveal a storage compartment wrapped by hand in Balenciaga's Italian lambskin leather."
Attendant image photos reveal the target market:
"I'm here to pick up the ransom money for Daft Punk."
The limited edition Speaker Bag will only be available at some (not all) Balenciaga boutiques. Unsurprisingly, no price is listed.
I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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B&O/Balenciaga Portable Speaker is Milled From a Single Block of Aluminum
For the fact, that it looks like a 90s CD player it's an unbelievable amount of wasted material.
Sorry, no offense, but when I think of B&O i think of state of the art design. Maybe as an industrial design page we should be more critical about such shallow styling. (just my opinion)
But nice to see, that a company is going an extra mile for design ;)
When I think of Bang and Olufsen, I think of aesthetics that age exceptionally well, durability, and consideration for the user that has long been ahead of rivals. Multiroom audio, telephones that turn down the volume on the hifi when a call is taken, discreet satellite speakers etc.