Leading Dutch Designer Takes On Apple

Leading Dutch Designer Marcel Wanders who normally works with big European brands is set to take on Apple with a range of new CE products that are very different from the average products on offer from CE vendors.

Leading Dutch designer Marcel Wanders has teamed up with an Australian company to produce a new range of CE products which have been described as a combination of “fun design coupled with an innovative new look”. The range developed during the past six months is also designed to take on Apple designed products.

The new company Sydney based DECA, is run by Nihal Gupta the man who brought CRT TV to the masses in Australia with the Palsonic range. Now he wants to reproduce his previous success with a range of “Made In China” but designed by Marcel Wanders CE products that include a boxed home theatre kit, wireless speakers that will also work with a USB stick, an integrated sub woofer and speakers and a DECA branded TV. Also in the range is a DVD player and TV screen that fits on the front of a microwave.

Revealed for the first time at the recent Designex 2007 trade show in Melbourne the range has very distinct look and is unlike any other CE products on the market. New 124mm speakers are oval in shape and covered in what looks like a fine lattice design which females at the Designex show found “appealing”.

Also in the range is a $1,599 home theatre kit which comes in a sleek wooden box  that looks as if it came right out of the 1970’s. Only 100mm wide and 320mm deep the 175mm high kit also comes with a remote control and integrated DVD player.

DECA CEO Nihal Gupta

DECA is hoping to sell the new range via specialist electrical and departmental retail store distribution channels.
“Design is critical to the success of a CE product today” said DECA CEO Nihal Gupta. “Consumers are dictating trends and what we have done is work with one of the world’s leading designers to develop a brand new and fresh looking CE range of products. Marcel Wanders is working with leading brands such as Boffi, B&B Italia, Poliform and the likes of Cappellina.

Wanders, who was one of the early members of the cutting-edge design collective Droog, has once again expanded his repertoire with the DECA range of products. The prolific Dutchman spent February promoting the new Miami hotel Mondrian South Beach, for which he designed the interior. Wanders, 44, conceived the hotel as “Sleeping Beauty’s castle,” with gardens that serve as indoor and outdoor living spaces, featuring cabanas, tented play spaces for children and a hanging chandelier above the elegant pool. The hotel rooms, which resemble theater boxes, overlook the gardens so that “everyone has the best seat in the house,” he says. The 2006 Elle Decoration designer of the year furnished the hotel with original pieces, such as lighting fixtures, sofas and even floors from his studio. Now that the hotel is complete, Wanders can focus on his next endeavors, including a line of new outdoor tent accessories for Puma, due in stores soon.