Gen Z Is OBSESSED With Vintage Pink Princess Phones and We Know Exactly Why
If Chappell Roans Pink Pony Club were a real place, you wouldnt be able to reserve a table online. You would have to make a phone call, and the Pink Pony hostess would answer it using a pink Princess phone.The club may be imaginary, but the pink Princess phone is just as fabulousand very, very real. An iconic design item, the princess phonea lightweight, streamlined version of the rotary dialwas introduced in 1959 with the advertising slogan, its little, its lovely, it lights! (The phone doubled as a nightlight, with a glowing dial.) Princess phones were manufactured through 1994, but while production ceased when Gen X was still in college, the elegant appliances have found a new audience: Gen Z is obsessed with landlines, and the queen of them all is the princess.Pop star Kenzie Ziegler has not one but two pink landlines in her California home, one of them a princess. TikTok star brooktheshopaholic said she made my childhood dreams come true when she bought a pink Trimline phonethe Princess phones younger sister, born in 1965. (The Trimline has a pushpad rather than a dial, so its little, its lovely, but it doesnt light.) Her beloved phone doesnt even workits displayed like an objet dart. View full post on TiktokAnd Val Flores, a Gen Z board member of Telephone Collectors International who owns five working Princess phones, took to TikTok as w.e_princess to show viewers how to make old phones found in antique shops usable today. (Yes, you can connect them to your cell phone.)Designers understand the appeal. I absolutely love a statement landline, says designer Sasha Bikoff. The Princess phone oozes glamour and divine femininity. There is nothing more iconic than a pink landlineits giving lady of the manor. Heres why the pink Princess phone is having a moment. More Landline LoveIts a Piece of HerstoryLMPC//Getty ImagesIt makes sense that young women are embracing this iconic phone because its an example of one of the first times consumer product design paid attention to them. For much of the twentieth century, telephones were standard issue, designed for durability and function rather than consumer, curator Ellen Lupton wrote for an exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design museum. After 1953, color transformed the telephone from a basic technology into an alluring consumer product. AT&T ran ad campaigns encouraging women to see the phone as an element of home decoration.The Design Is on PointEager to attract the growing teenage market, a design team headed by Henry Dreyfuss studied how young women used the telephone. When they noticed that teenage girls would lie on their backs in bed with the heavy house phone on their belly, they designed a lighter phone that would be easier to move around during marathon gab seshes. View full post on YoutubeAnyone who has seen the 1963 film version of Bye Bye Birdie knows that the lightweight design workedmaybe a little too well. The phones light weight proved to be a liability, however, as users commonly pulled the base off its table by the cord, Lupton writes. Later designs feature a weighted base. In fact, the earliest Princess models required a separate ringer box. But in 1963, a ringer small enough to be inserted into the phone itself was invented. That year, First Lady Jackie Kennedy requested a black version of the colorful phonewhich had been designed as an alternative to regular black rotary phones, and first came in white, beige, pink, blue, or turquoise. After that, Flores says, of course, all the ladies were like, I want a black Princess phone!Its an Entire MoodJGI/Jamie Grill//Getty ImagesToday, you can find Princess phones at online antique sites such as Chairish and Etsy. Some have been refurbished to be used as actual phones (although you might have to pay extra if you want the light-up feature to work). Others serve as sculptural reminders of a more glamorous time and place, when a phone was a means of communication rather than doomscrolling. During the original reign of the Princess phone, Talking on the phone to get a phone call was a whole experience; it was special, designer Joshua Smith says. It was a treat to get a phone call. Now we dont want any calls, it feels overwhelming. A Princess phone brings this nostalgia, and nostalgia feels good.Along with nostalgia, theres the dopamine decorating factor. We know color psychology, and pink Princess phones evoke a certain feeling. Who doesnt want to feel like a princess in this time when everything feels so unstable or scary, Smith says. We all want to accessorize with things that are fun or make us feel good. A Princess phone is playful, its fun, its not as serious. And we are in a place and time where the world is so serious that people are wanting to express a little more playfulness.Its a Multisensory ExperienceIf youre able to make a functional Princess phone work as an actual phone rather than just a mood-lifting sculpture, then youre ready to take talking on the telephone to the next level. That twirly cord wont just tether you to the phone but to the moment in time and the person youre talking to. When you put your earbuds on and call somebody and walk around doing laundry, you cant be really present, Smith insists. When you pick up that phone and hold it to your ear, thats something tactile that youre touching. Youre dialing the rotary or pressing the buttons on the phone and then youre talking to that friend, youre actually really present then. You connect in a more meaningful way, not just with your friend but with your body, with what youre doing.Speaking of tactile pleasures, the Princess phones smooth handle feels great in the hand, and twirling the cord is the original fidget spinner. As a Princess phone owner (times five), Flores agrees that it offers a better connection than a cell phone. Sometimes I can tell if people are looking up something on their cell phone, they sound distracted, she says. You cant do that with a Princess phone, its just between you and that person. Ive had such moving conversations with people on my rotary phone. You can tell the other persons focus is 100 percent on you. They might be doing something else with their hands but theyre not scrolling, theyre there, theyre present. I find that too when Im talking to people on my phones, Im there, Im present, Im twirling the cord. Im like a teenager from the 60s.The Sound Quality Is BetterAs phones have morphed into computers, home theaters, video game arcades, cameras, and more, theyve started to perform much more poorly as phones. Over time, with technology advancements, the way voice travels down the line has changed drastically, Flores says. Whats odd is that the quality is better on the carbon microphone of the Princess phonethey had a better way of capturing voice.A Princess phone has one job to do (two if you count the night light feature). I have a cell phone for work and everything else, but when I want to talk to people I just pick up the Princess phone and call my friends and family, Flores says. And they say, I know what youre calling from! It sounds different, and better.It May Even Be a Form of Self-CareThe Royal Tenenbaums. 2001 Touchstone PicturesMargo Tenenbaum on her pink Princess phone.A Zoom meeting is work. A pink Princess phone call is fun, connection, a balm for the soul. What were learning from a neuroscience perspective is that we can actually consciously create the chemicals in our brain that make us feel gooddopamine, norepinephrine, Smith says. When you grab your phone and call your friend and hold it to your ear, you have a tangible experience that brings you joy. Nothing could be more timeless than that.Follow House Beautiful on Instagram and TikTok.
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