Sir James Dyson, the British designer and engineer, sporting sneakers, cobalt blue spectacles and a voluminous thatch of silvery hair, stood in his vast glass office in the depths of the English countryside one recent Tuesday afternoon. He was clutching a device that he contends could change the monotony of bathroom routines forever.
“There has been zero innovation in this market for over 60 years,” said Mr. Dyson, 68, a billionaire who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.
“Millions of people use contraptions daily that are hideously inefficient, waste their time and are causing them long-term damage,” he said. “We realized that we could — and should — sort this situation out.”
He triumphantly held up what appeared to be a sleek black and pink plastic doughnut on a stick. “Four years, 100 odd patents and 600 prototypes later, I think we might have found the answer.”
Known as the Dyson Supersonic and unveiled in Tokyo on April 27, the device is his response to a question many never thought to ask: Is it possible to make a better hair dryer?
This may not seem like a big deal. A few burned scalps and frizz issues aside, people have been doing just fine with the standard hair dryer for decades. But, as Dai Fujiwara, a Japanese fashion designer who collaborated with Mr. Dyson on an Issey Miyake runway presentation, wrote in an email, “Because everyday life is too common, people rarely realize there is a problem.”
About 92 percent of British women regularly use a hair dryer (according to the consultancy Mintel), while 75.5 percent of all women and 24.5 percent of men in the United States and 97 percent of women and 30 percent of men in Japan use one (according to Dyson), and most spend an average of 20 minutes on each session. So changing even a small percentage of that behavior could have outsize repercussions.
Mr. Dyson, Britain’s best-known living inventor, is the Steve Jobs of domestic appliances. He has built a fortune from making otherwise standard products seem aesthetically desirable, in the process persuading untold numbers of consumers that they really, really want cordless and bagless vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, bladeless fans and even household robots. (...)
Ed Shelton, a design manager for the Supersonic, said: “It was the hardest project I’ve ever worked on. Beyond having to crack the science of hair, we’ve had to tackle a highly subjective user psychology.
“Trust me when I say there are many more approaches and angles to blow-drying than vacuuming in the world. British women want volume. Japanese women want straightness. No one wants hair damage. And we then we had to create a fleet of robots specifically to test that over and over again.”
by Elizabeth Paton, NY Times | Read more:
“There has been zero innovation in this market for over 60 years,” said Mr. Dyson, 68, a billionaire who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.“Millions of people use contraptions daily that are hideously inefficient, waste their time and are causing them long-term damage,” he said. “We realized that we could — and should — sort this situation out.”
He triumphantly held up what appeared to be a sleek black and pink plastic doughnut on a stick. “Four years, 100 odd patents and 600 prototypes later, I think we might have found the answer.”
Known as the Dyson Supersonic and unveiled in Tokyo on April 27, the device is his response to a question many never thought to ask: Is it possible to make a better hair dryer?
This may not seem like a big deal. A few burned scalps and frizz issues aside, people have been doing just fine with the standard hair dryer for decades. But, as Dai Fujiwara, a Japanese fashion designer who collaborated with Mr. Dyson on an Issey Miyake runway presentation, wrote in an email, “Because everyday life is too common, people rarely realize there is a problem.”
About 92 percent of British women regularly use a hair dryer (according to the consultancy Mintel), while 75.5 percent of all women and 24.5 percent of men in the United States and 97 percent of women and 30 percent of men in Japan use one (according to Dyson), and most spend an average of 20 minutes on each session. So changing even a small percentage of that behavior could have outsize repercussions.
Mr. Dyson, Britain’s best-known living inventor, is the Steve Jobs of domestic appliances. He has built a fortune from making otherwise standard products seem aesthetically desirable, in the process persuading untold numbers of consumers that they really, really want cordless and bagless vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, bladeless fans and even household robots. (...)
Ed Shelton, a design manager for the Supersonic, said: “It was the hardest project I’ve ever worked on. Beyond having to crack the science of hair, we’ve had to tackle a highly subjective user psychology.
“Trust me when I say there are many more approaches and angles to blow-drying than vacuuming in the world. British women want volume. Japanese women want straightness. No one wants hair damage. And we then we had to create a fleet of robots specifically to test that over and over again.”
by Elizabeth Paton, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Andrew Testa
