Manifesto

It seems odd to me that I would end up creating a product in fashion

I never really liked fashion

Whilst I liked design, I saw fashion as creating objects that were disposable, impractical and inaccessible. More than this I saw fashion as creating ideals that preyed on our frailty as humans. Our desire to be desirable, to gain status, and to be included were misused to get us to buy more things that would only last as long as the manufactured intent to buy them in the first place

But let me back up a bit

I have always liked design. The imagination, conception and creation of a thing that lives at the intersection of form and function. Something that is beautiful, timeless and effortless

Truth be told, I love design .. as a kid I sketched cars, in university for a business degree I sketched chairs, but somehow I ended up in software design

I’d like to suggest that there is no more underappreciated form of design than software design. The abstract embodiment of the well worn cliche of ‘good design is when there is nothing left to take away’. 

Software, for most people, is at its best when you don’t even realise it’s there at all. There is no software on display in the Met in New York City. People will rarely tell you about this beautiful bit of software they bought

So what does all this have to do with fashion? Well, like most stories it starts with serendipity 

A few years ago a friend of mine travelled to Hong Kong in the early 2000s and on a whim I said ‘bring me back something nice’. So she bought me a belt. 

It had a simple design that worked well, but, as most things tend to do, degraded over time. So a few years ago I tried to find a replacement but after months of searching and buying a number of really shitty belts, I gave up. 

Everything was either poorly made, super expensive or covered in branding. Nothing was interchangeable so meant I was going to have to buy multiple belts. If it was interchangeable then it had been designed with moving parts that wore out quickly and failed to work properly

A belt felt like a thing that could be beautiful, functional and made to last a lifetime

So I decided to create that. I decided to design YOKU

I started by taking some lessons in 3D design, realising very quickly that this needs skills way beyond my tinkering so I started to look for someone and, through another act of serendipity, I was introduced to Mark, an industrial designer and maker with a passion for beautiful design, challenging problems. 

We shared a viewpoint that good design takes time and space so firstly created that

We both believed that a belt could be an object d’art. It could be made incredibly well. It could work like magic and most importantly it could be designed and made to outlast the person owning it

It could be important to people, not because it played on their weakness and fears but on their strengths and aspirations.

We believe, universally, that people want to be better versions of themselves. They want to find success and have an impact and they want to find happiness and harmony

In a finite world we believe that people want to make better choices, less often and they want to reduce the usage of resources their mere existence demands. 

Making objectively beautiful objects, that are functional and durable is our obligation and this belt is not merely the realisation of that principle but an idea we think people want to take out into the world

But, there was one more thing that was missing from our thinking

The duality of beautiful, functional design with durability is only 2 of the 3 things required to make good design, truly, world changing great

Affordability.

Most textbooks will tell you that making things affordable means making them cheap and that people don’t desire things that are cheap. 

The truth is that people desire things that make them feel rich. That makes them feel powerful. That makes them feel right.

People want things that help remind them of who they are. When you make your product expensive you’re only limiting the number of people who can afford to buy your product, regardless of the desire

In a world of finite resources, if what you really care about is sustainability then your success depends on how many people buy your product and stop buying the shitty, disposable alternative they do already.

YOKU is designed to be the most beautiful, well made, longest lasting and versatile belt in the world. There are around 500 million belts sold every year and most last no longer than a few years. 

The overwhelming majority are made under a cyclical fashion model that prioritises repeat purchase over long term ownership, margin over impact and trends over values.

YOKU exists to put a dent in that number and to do that means selling millions of belts, to millions of people which means not only making a product they value but actually making it affordable

We want to make a product that doesn't cost too much. Not so people will be able to buy a lot of it, but so a lot of people will be able to buy it. 

I like to think that with YOKU we haven’t really created a product in fashion, but an idea in fashion. The idea of ‘One less thing’

A belt for all the people who care about beautiful, sustainable design for all

 

Vincent Turner - YOKU