You could plausibly argue that most iPhone cases, protective qualities aside, hide and even detract from the aesthetic beauty of the phones themselves. I mean, we all know Jony Ive sheds a tear every time an Otterbox is sold. But there is a line of cases from Tech 21 that might actually have a legitimate claim to making your iPhone look better. That’s because they feature original decorative designs from Liberty London, drawing on over a hundred and forty years of distinctive, art nouveau-inspired textile prints. They’re stunning, actually.
Their formal attractiveness aside, what draws me to this line of cases is the idea of creating a connection, however tenuous, between the distinctly contemporary iPhone and an historically significant design legacy like Liberty’s. If nothing else, the pairing of these two seemingly unrelated kinds of design draws a contrast worth considering between a technological product that few people expect to last more than two or three years and an aesthetic tradition that has lasted nearly a century and a half.
I’m not really a floral print kind of guy, but I’ve long admired the aesthetic acuity of Liberty prints. What’s more, I would actually sport one of these myself if I didn’t already own a case (also made by Tech 21, but just a boring, dark gray color)—and I wouldn’t necessarily choose the darkest, “manliest” option, either. There are ten total designs and you can see them all at tech21.com.
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