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Pimp Your Home: Or Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive – From a Consumer Perspective

Bouchez, Hilde

This paper looks into the way the consumer moves along the paradigm shift of design from being objects of status identity, towards open design, with a focus on the making rather than the having. In 2005 the magazine Wallpaper* advertised a lamp designed by Massimo Vignelli (1955), with the slogan: I don't care what it is for, I want it. This message represents very much the generic meaning in the 2000s, of design being about status and artistic form, rather than about function and practical use. Based on a 2009 study of the way inhabitants in one street in full gentrification in Flanders, think of, buy into and actively participate within the design field, this paper shows how the Flemish public has very much been influenced by the narratives of lifestyle media and design producers. However, in the way they deal with design at home, it becomes obvious that the majority of respondents do not much buy into mediated design objects, nor do they want to be associated with the non-functional status symbol these products often represent. However, almost all participants have actively been refurbishing their home within the aesthetics of a much promoted design-style, which leads to the conclusion that not only the designer himself, but also the consumer, is recently looking for another meaning of design. Making seems to be more important than having, which coincides with the growing interest in open design.