When Marcel Bich and Edouard Buffard first came out with the Bric Cristal ballpoint pen in France in 1950 – after tweaking Patent No. US-2390636-A filed by Hungarian-Argentinian Laszlo Biro – the world of consumer durables received a jolt that both excited and bewildered people. Here was a product, a pen, one of the virtues of which was durability, the sort of thing that a father hands down to his daughter, and prizes like other items like cufflinks, lighters, personalised stationery, and cars. But suddenly, you had the Bic that you used, used for a bit more and then threw away. Mon diable!
In 1970, the upstart French duo pounced on another French institution, ST Dupont, purchasing the luxury goods manufacturer and with it Dupont’s primary product line of luxury lighters. By three years, the Bic disposable lighter flooded the market – and the world remains inundated with it. It was only a matter of time till the disposable shaving razor appeared, this, at a time when I remember my father still using the double-edged metal safety razor with Wilkinson Sword blades that had to placed between the two plates and then turned into place like a precision instrument. My father’s safety razor is still operational.
But what Bic unleashed from the mid-20th century – the shortened life cycle – has become a default setting in today’s world of consumer durables. Not only are products imbued with a short life span, but even customers of taste (read: those willing to pay premium on quality) don’t expect things to last, literally or rhetorically.
In fact, products like mobile phones or sherwanis – not to mention home appliances like refrigerators, television sets, air-conditioners, washing machines – are eagerly ditched for ‘newer models,’ as if Darwinian principles, and not marketing chutzpah, are at play. Heirlooms may be sought, but there isn’t much contemporary stuff to heirloom away. The heirs, for one, would prefer the latest furniture for home decor – for that particular season – instead of ‘being stuck’ with, say, a 1950s set of four teak and cane Pierre Jeanneret chairs that are still sleek as oxen, sturdy as bulls.
Not to sound mid-20th century myself, what applies to things, also applies to dealings with people. The earlier heartburn and/or brimstone, and social awkwardness that accompanied break-ups are growing less severe. The ‘knowledge’ that the life cycles of relationships themselves have shortened provide both reassurance and enthusiasm – for the next one.
The oldest thing in our home is a Cresset Press first edition of the 1948 English translation of the 18th century German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe’s delightfully fabulist stories, ‘Singular Travels, Campaigns and Adventures of Baron Munchausen’ that I bought in an antique bookstore in London some 20 years ago. The second oldest object is a sari handed down to my wife by her grandmother. I keep strange artefacts in my store drawer for sentimental reasons – including a still-unopened bar of chocolate that is now almost seven years old. But it is the shortening of the life cycle of things, their longevity measured by their purpose ‘to serve a purpose,’ that has now become – what do they call it again? – a virtuous cycle. Product makers and relationship service providers (who usually double as acceptors) provide a said or unsaid sell-by date, and product buyers and relation service acceptors (who usually double as providers) happily welcome durability’s attractiveness shifting to perishables a.k.a. The Upgrade.
Which means, of course, newspapers moving from being documents of record to being considered tomorrow’s raddi is not only not a sad thing, but a welcome phenomenon. It means looking forward to the next day’s paper. Or, in this particular case, next Sunday’s.
P.S. Funnily, not everything broken can be replaced.
