The Beijing Auto Show is on and that means it’s time for luxury carmakers to do what they do best: pontificate about the nature of luxury itself. Maybach took the chance to make a living room. It’s weird.
Maybach’s press release explained its reasoning for showing this room as an expression of “Sensual Purity,” its current brand essence:
In order to make the ultimate in luxury and the essence of the brand experienceable holistically, the designers have developed a matching home environment which radiates luxury and cultivated refinement.
The description of the room itself is wonderfully over-the-top. Is that rose gold? Hell no. It’s rosé gold:
“Our brand experience of the ultimate luxury is evident in the exclusive lounge furniture collection in the form of fine materials in the colours rosé gold, white and silk beige”, says Gorden Wagener, Chief Design Officer of Daimler AG. “Their sensuousness and pure refinement create a timeless aesthetic for Mercedes-Maybach, our brand for the ultimate in luxury.”
We only have one photo to go along with the room, as seen above. It looks nice, right? No dust bunnies anywhere. No piles of books collected in a corner, constantly reminding you of what you haven’t gotten around to finishing. No dog hair. By my standards, this is great.
But the longer you look at it, the weirder it gets.
Everything is alternately a bunch of sitting shit that’s not comfortable to sit on, or a bunch of shit that you’re inclined to touch but you shouldn’t.
Those rose gold accents look lovely... now, before you accidentally lean on it or touch it while fumbling for a light switch and get it covered in fingerprints.
Do rich people not touch anything? Do they not have fingerprints at all? Am I a chump for not having mine surgically removed so that I’m not trackable by Mark Zuckerberg? Unclear. The best working theory in the office is that rich people have no oil in their hands, but I can’t say I understand why that would be the case. Expensive lotions of some kind? Not sure.
Whatever the reason, if Maybach puts out a car interior halfway like this, all white leather and shine, it’s nothing short of a challenge to you to not fuck it up and get it dirty. Or maybe you’re supposed to trash it and show how little you care. I don’t get it, man.