Kris Jenner really can make anything happen.
The famous media personality was the first person to get their hands on the all-new 2021 Rolls Royce Ghost, which landed earlier this week. Formally presented by Rolls Royce President and CEO Martin Fritsches, the delivery took place at the O’Gara Motorsport facility located inside the Thermal Club Private Track in Palm Springs. The new ride joins the Keeping Up With The Kardashian star’s current fleet of bespoke creations commissioned from the brand.
With cutting-edge engineering, the Ghost is arguably the hottest and most technologically advanced Rolls Royce ever. The coveted silent ride boasts a shooting starlight headliner, a new illuminated fascia built into the dashboard, downlit grille, that is powered by the Rolls Royce V-12 engine, power opening/closing doors, all-wheel drive, and 4-wheel steering.
Although Jenner is known for her extravagant, some would say garish, sense of style, her new Rolls Royce boasts a unique post-opulent design. Defined by reduction and simplicity, the streamlined design movement was first introduced following the Great Depression. Rejecting any sort of grandeur and flash, consumers drove the luxury industry to tone it down in reflection of the economic temperature. More recently, the 2008 recession led to similar shift back of minimalism. Driven by the public’s priorities, the sleek and clean vs. showy and rich, became the new desired automobile aesthetic.
Now in 2020, with the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic combined with a time of economic uncertainty, consumers, with a new set of values, seem to be drawn back to this scaled-down sense of design.
According to Luxuo, when Rolls Royce designer Henry Clocke conceived the new Ghost, his team “kept returning to this phrase post opulence.”
“As a designer when I imagined this movement, I think of The Shard on London Southbank,” he said. “It’s the polar opposite of the opulent Baroque buildings that it overlooks. It’s perfectly minimal and linear yet by cleverly using reflection and light. It doesn’t feel clinical. It doesn’t expend any excess energy to define itself. This is exactly what Ghost clients asked us to create.”
“We removed all unnecessary design, we pursued a minimal aesthetic, yet ensured the new Ghost was unmistakably a Rolls Royce,” added Clocke.
It’s not just luxury cars following this post opulence direction. From standardized Patek Philippe timepieces to simplified Prada fashions, bigger is no longer better from a consumer’s point of view. Whether the design approach is a passing trend or a true cultural movement remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: Jenner is (low key) ridin’ in style with her new Ghost.
