TECH

Technology enables and intercepts us every other moment in a day, no small wonder then that our devices should become key fashion accessories. Whether brandished on the metro or left face-down at the meeting room table, one’s iPhone case invariably communicates a range of user information about personality, preference, and a host of other essential minutiae. In the high-end designer universe, iPhone cases have become diminutive canvases for expression of house aesthetic, a uniquely charged surface for statement of intent. Logos, impact text, textile flourishes, and tactile accents add essential optics to material uses like rigid silicone and Saffiano leather or flexible rubber. More seen and hence possibly more scrutinized, designer earbud and over-the-ear headphones blend essential sartorial cues with dynamic, crisp, state-of-the-art listening technology like lightweight, durable Beryllium drivers to gain an edge in what has, for much of its history, been an aesthetically aimless field. iOS-integrated features, meanwhile, collapse the boundaries of practicality and fashion as we accelerate towards an uncertain endpoint.