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the world according to stelton

can you change a classic?

the shape of things to come? last night stelton ceo michael ring welcomed the faithful and the loyal to his new headquarters in copenhagen's lovely christianshavn kanal for a lecture on management buy in. for those who have never been to copenhagen and never heard of stelton- and i am sure there's many of you - both are best in class in their category and currently undergoing major rebranding. i admit, i had never heard of stelton before coming to denmark. nor had i realized that acquiring cutlery could be a life altering experience, but it is, it is. stelton i am told, is a major classic among danish design brands. And it prides itself  on transmogrifying the base components of every day life, mugs, pots - the things the rest of the world buys at sweden's ikea (cudos to the swedes) - into shiny, clean and frankly, dull, objects of desire designed ransack your wallet.

stelton is highly touted classic scandinavian design that looks as homogenous as the danish population: every mug and cup and ashtray comes in streamlined black and silver, modeled on the elongated cylindrical shape that danish designer arne jacobsen designed for the company back in the sixties, landing a runaway hit. the classic collection looks, well, masculine, for lack of a better word, so i was rather puzzled to hear ceo michael ring say that it is women who predominantly buy the stern looking stelton design. hm. the branding, including logo and website, are emblems of masculinity to me (check the website here, it's all black and grey), which is of course not inherently a bad thing, but somewhat odd if women are your main shoppers? and certainly something to think about if you are embarking on a major expansion: ceo ring is planning to turn around the ailing stelton brand by creating no less than seven new brands, each with its own product line to complement the existing classic line (the one with the cylindrical shape, or the phallic line as i have come to call it). to do so he has hired a slew of - yes, you guessed it - male designers - including a certain andreas something, who designed a new BMW - a prototype if there is any, of design that embodies masculinity.

but what do i know. i am neither danish nor a man, nor do i work at stelton. to be fair, someone pointed out that fashion, the quintessentially girlie industry, is run by men and designed by men, and that's correct but not very accurate - it is designed and run by homosexual men, almost without exception: galliano, marc jacobs, alexander mcqueen, versace come to mind, to name just a few. so, not to step on anyone's toes and not to offend any of stelton's new designers, but in the interest of the company's sales among the female half of the population, let's hope some of the new designers for the company do possess a slightly more metrosexual sensitivity. (little aside: i am told metrosexuality is out again. perhaps just hire homosexuals. Or hire women?).

but back to the lecture. In a typically cozy and friendly atmosphere - what the danes call hyggeligt, which translates roughly as "lots of candles, ingenious lighting and people who know each other since kindergarden", about 40 "friends of michael" gathered at the stelton showroom. disappointingly, mr. ring did little more than plug his career and his not very convincing vision for stelton to a crowd of admirers who either have been to school with him or have done business with him. not surprisingly the number of women in the audience was a low as the number of sunny days in a danish winter - which is very low. mr. ring peppered his lecture with insider references and jokes addressed to various mortens and mikaels in the audience who supposedly got the point. the lecture was in english, i might mention, and cheers to that, but much of the benefit is going to be lost if you then proceed to tell insider stories that require having known you for 20 years. mr. ring grew close and personal in analysing his career; he has worked for hilti and georg jensen, but much of his take on his career - he was fired from danish design company georg jensen 2 years ago and overcame the crisis by running in the woods - consisted in taking shots at people who have crossed him. he called some of his nemeses "assholes" (at a corporate lecture?) and aired gripes for being treated unfairly. not that i would want to make fun about losing one's job - it is a painful affair and certainly more so if it happens without fair cause. but ceos should be role models of professionalism - get over it or go run a bit more in the woods to let off steam.

for those familiar with denmark as a modern, sophisticated, highly educated country running a gender equality campaign pretty much since the 60s, the tribal nature of business in denmark comes as a shock. it is particularly pronounced in top management, and this general impression is corroborated by findings that denmark's job market is one of europe's most sex-segregated (see separated at birth? ) and that the country trails most other european countries in terms of women represented on company boards (see trailing europe?). So much for nordic equality claims. perhaps it can explain some of the business conduct in denmark - the obligatory loyalty, a tendency to engage in personal feuding, the bonding rituals before engaging in business exchanges: mr. ring for instance talked about running marathons and jogging in the woods to test a potential employee's mettle before deciding to hire him - do women have to go and run marathons too to land a job? hmmm. so all in all a very interesting evening with some sharp insights delivered into danish society and business. the lecture was not as enlightening when it came to explain the vision for stelton, however. mr. ring talked about creating a design house that can launch iconic brands, which ideally will ride on the stelton brand value and go forth and capture different market segments. so far so good. but seven brands? (or maybe eight, i can't remember. i was busy eyeing the crowd counting the women). hm. perhaps stelton would do well to start talking to its potential core customer, which i am afraid includes the likes of me. and i am not impressed. yet.