Ora Ito and the Imaginary Products
Posted on November 28, 2005
Bloomberg has a fascinating article about hot designer Ora Ito and how he got his start. He's only 24, but he has amazing ideas for creating visionary new products in every category, from fashion to computers to buildings.
Ito began by designing imaginary products, like an ergonomic Louis Vuitton backpack, space-age looking stiletto heels and bulletproof Mac computers. A magazine ran a feature on Ito with photos of his imaginary products, and was immediately besieged by readers demanding to know where they could buy them. That got the interest of huge companies from Toyota to LVMH Moet Hennessy/Louis Vuitton to Heineken.
Pascal Gilet, global marketing manager for Heineken, who gave Ito his first contract, tells Bloomberg, "We had places like [upscale Paris department store] Bon Marche besieging us with calls. It was unprecedented."
The article says Ito' website was getting 200,000 visitors a day. Ito had a major Swiss collector interested in his imaginary watch designs. LVMH wanted to buy his imaginary monogrammed backpack.
We do love an unusual success story! Although we still don't know if that groovy LV backpack is ever going to be available in stores.