Mobile phones are becoming as much of a status symbol as mechanical watches, as witnessed by the growth of luxury phone manufacturer Vertu. We report on its latest, greatest range
One definition of a luxury good is something that’s not necessary, but nice. Luxury is therefore in the eye of the beholder: you may think a £10,000 (€12,600) mechanical watch is a frippery in an era when a £100 plastic Casio Atomic Waveceptor can tell the time more accurately; but hundreds of thousands disagree, judging by the growth in the luxury watch market.
A mobile phone is a case in point: 10 years ago, nobody thought of a it as anything but a functional device. But a quick scan of any café in Italy, or Dubai, told a different tale: mobiles were becoming style items, essential accessories for a generation that was growing up with them.
And it was 10 years ago when an LA-based designer, Frank Nuovo, had a brainwave. If people were buying luxury cars and coats and watches, why wouldn’t they want a luxury mobile phone? “You’d climb into your Porsche in your Zegna suit, wearing a Rolex, and then you’d pull out your mobile phone and it would be this cheap plastic thing,” Nuovo says.
The fact that Nuovo was at the time chief designer at Nokia, the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturer, meant he could do something about his vision. So, with a team drawn from the company’s brightest brains, Nuovo laid the foundations for what was to become Vertu, the world’s first manufacturer of luxury mobile phones. According to Alberto Torres, the company’s president, the aim is simple: “In ten years Vertu will be one of the world’s leading luxury brands.”
This autumn, Vertu is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the release of its most advanced phone yet. The new Signature, a replacement for the original Signature model that marked the brand’s retail launch in 2002, is a thing of beauty – slim and sleek while still substantial as a status symbol. It is a true artisanal creation.
Although a mobile phone will never be a mechanical device like a tourbillon watch – electronics will always lie at its heart – the Signature is the most intricately made phone yet. It boasts a so-called ‘sea of sapphire crystal’, forged over two weeks in a furnace at temperatures of more than 2,0000C, on its face; it’s so hard that it has to be cut, ground and polished with diamondtipped tools. The keys on its pad are supported by 4.75 carats of ruby bearings, as found on the finest watches. These are the culmination of years of research by Vertu’s team, aimed at making the feel of the keys on the phones as luxurious as the buttons on a luxury watch.
The sound from the hi-fi speaker in the ceramic pillow is astonishingly clear for a mobile phone; the Vertu Signature Sandpiper tune was played and recorded for the company by the London Symphony Orchestra alongside the renowned flutist Andrea Griminelli. Even the precision-made screws, each of them fastened by hand in Vertu’s factory in Hampshire, England, are made of white gold. And everything is sheathed in Vertu’s handmade cases, in a choice of stainless steel, rose gold, yellow gold or white gold.
And if you’re looking for a Vertu for every occasion, there are two other ranges: the supertough, masculine Ascent Ti, and the sleek, more feminine Constellation. All can be ‘bespoked’ with diamonds, engravings and the like.
And if your reaction to all of this is, “Fine, but it won’t get through to the reservations line at Nobu any quicker than my Nokia,” you’d be wrong. Every Vertu comes with a dedicated Concierge Service, with a hotline to Nobu and many other places your usual phone can’t access.
Think about it this way: next time you’re sitting sipping Krug in a six-star hotel in your Prada suit, elaborate timepiece on your wrist, Berluti shoes adorning your feet, what would you rather pull out to take a call: something handmade and beautiful, or the same kind of plastic phone teenagers use to text each other in the suburbs? – Darius Sanai
