Karim Rashid - The Mind Of Design

A living design legend talks about a genderless world, the distinction between design and style, and the fading tribe of the metrosexual man

- Mridula Sharma

DGY, EVOCATIVE, futuristic, detailed-to-perfection, unabashedly colourful and sensual are only some of the attributes of Karim Rashid’s designs. At a personal level, the man can carry offa pink suit and how! A touchstone of luxurious living, any product,space or a project that gets his touch is catapulted into the haloed realm of the uber-luxe. Turning stereotypes on their head, Karim’s underlying mantra for everyday use products is, ‘when not in use, it must have contemporary beauty to offer’. An industrial designer with over 4000 designs in production sold in 40 countries — from a toothbrush and a water-bottle to a skyscraper, he has designed them all. One could take the liberty of drawing a metaphor of a friendly dragon who spews edgy fluidity onto materials to create fascinating everyday-use products. How else does one gauge the length and breadth of his body of work? And it’s not just products, he has also designed the graphics and packaging for Paris Baguette, and graphics and branding for several other companies.

For New York-based, Cairo-born, Ottawa-raised Karim Rashid, the initiation into design, post his education as an industrial product designer, was an apprenticeship to none other than Ettore Sottsass in Milan. Moving rapidly across genres and materials, all his designs have one thing in common — ‘attitude’. As someone comfortable with breaking glass ceilings, THE MAN spoke to him about the brief appearance of the metrosexual man and his views on the trend.

How and why did metrosexuality become such a huge wave so silently?