Aug 28, 2024

Jony Ive Reinvents the Button

LoveFrom teams up with Moncler on outerwear...

The above Apple News link is actually the only link I see to this online right now – it's from the September issue of Vogue – but yes, this is Jony Ive's LoveFrom design shop teaming up with Moncler on new outerwear:

“This is how it all started,” Ive says, sliding three bound volumes of exhaustive research towards me. “We did months and months of fastener research and button research before we even started drawing anything.” Eventually, the LoveFrom team landed on what they’re calling “duo” buttons – two-part magnets engineered from aluminium, brass and steel. The buttons connect any of the base-layer pieces to any of the shells at five different points on each garment, making a delightful clicking sound in the process. “It’s quite a nice symbol of the collaboration with Moncler, of these two different things coming together,” Ive says.

Yes, Ive and his team re-invented and re-engineered the button. Yes, with "a-lew-min-e-um"! No, that's not all:

“I didn’t approach this as a fashion designer – I approached it as a designer,” says Ive, who is of course revered for the look and feel of the iPhone, the iPad, MacBooks and AirPods, but has no formal fashion training. “When you move beyond your traditional practice, you do so being very self-aware and deferential to all the stuff that you don’t know. I think the most important thing is that you are clear that you are designing for people, and that you have a fundamental attitude of curiosity.” And though Ive insists that many creative challenges are universal – whether you’re designing a building, headphones or a garment – “One of the very distinct challenges was understanding the drape of the textile and how the fabric moves and relates to the human form.” LoveFrom leaned heavily on Moncler for textile wisdom, with Ruffini’s team ultimately developing a custom fabric for the collection by treating recycled nylon with compressed air (or taslanising the yarn, to use fabric-speak) to create what looks and feels like a natural matt fibre akin to washed cotton.

They also had to hunt down a secret garment factory in Italy with a loom large enough to create the clothing out of a single piece of fabric. This all sounds very Jony Ive – "a single piece of aluminium", anyone?

Lightweight and soft to the touch, the jackets were designed for everyday wear – an outer layer for your morning commute, say, or the piece you grab on a rainy day – but the muted creamsicle palette and robust functionality lend them to more active pursuits, such as hiking too. “I find it very hard to disconnect colour from material,” Ive says. “Because we spent so long with Moncler on the raw material, I think I was trying to develop colours that felt – maybe this is an odd thing to say – somehow inevitable. I love design where you think, ‘Well, of course it’s this way – why would you do it any other way?’”

"Inevitable"! We're getting all the Jony Ive Bingo card words here. I'm sure this work is both amazing and expensive. No word on prices here beyond the one that is shown, a poncho (below), which is £1,420 – just under $2,000. This is not the type of poncho you're going to buy – or likely wear – on Maid of the Mist.

Naturally, the LoveFrom team designed the boxes and the bags for this collection as well. It will be available in October.