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LASplash.com: Los Angeles Events Nooka Timepieces Review Review for West Coast - High Concept Fashion Accessory By Joe Wehinger . Former Freelancer (Los Angeles, CA) June 12, 2008 – Nooka’s collections of timepieces were recently on the wrists of Kanye West, Konsequence and Pharrell Williams during Kanye’s “Glow in the Dark” tour. And now they are celebrated at the chic DDC Lab boutique surrounded by an intimate crowd of Hollywood trendsetters and well-wishers.
Nooka is creating more than just a way to tell time. These are fashion accessories, conversation pieces, wrist art. And everyone’s buying. The designer, Matthew Waldman, has a strong history with branding the coolest products. Everything from Panasonic to Details Magazine, and even a few in the middle. “At the beginning of the dot-com boom people wanted flash and I found creative ways to provide it”, he explains. But finally he broke away to do his own thing.
“I always try to use intuitive design. I analyze everything, [asking myself] is this the best way to show that information. One day I was looking at a wall clock and I had a flashback to elementary school and learning to tell time. How come we only have two ways to tell time? Let me do this as a design exercise, find interfaces that are more intuitive”. What Makes it So Cool Seeing is believing, because there are many cool things about it. It starts with simplicity and then extends towards extraordinary style. The collection offers six different face designs. But ultimately they convey the same thing. Four lines. That’s it. The first two indicates the hour of the day, the third gives you minutes and the fourth is seconds. Just that easy.
So let’s test it: four of the twelve top slots (dots, squares, rectangles, lines – depending on the face design) in the top two lines are filled. The third line is filled up to the “20” indicator and the fourth line is almost full. What time is it? 4:20pm, almost 4:21pm. Intuitive indeed. Waldman continues: “If you can count from 1-12, you can read this watch. It’s for everybody. The more black you see, the later it’s getting. It’s like in nature, you know it’s getting late when it gets darker”. Watch VS Timepiece So, you’ve got something strapped to your wrist and you want to know if it’s a “watch” or “time piece”. It’s an easy question for a beginner and Nooka provides an easy and friendly answer. Anything where the primary objective is simply time, well that’s a watch. Anything where it’s more about style or fashion, say a conversation-starter. That’s a timepiece. Nooka COO Robert Howards sums it up pretty nicely, “We try to avoid that [watch term] because we don’t want to be compared to the norm. We prefer a “design object” or “fashion accessory” because this isn’t just that, this is more.
Love it, Buy it According to COO Howards, in the three and a half years they’ve been around, the company has been moving. They’ve produced seventy different pieces and have sold to thirty-five countries. They have one hundred-twenty outlets in the United States alone. And that’s why tonight’s event is important, moving west awareness is a top priority. Jerry Lorenzo of Tru Star Media, summed it up well, “We’ve created a brand new experience for Nooka. We wanted to introduce the brand to influences and tastemakers on the west coast”. Mission accomplished. In LA they’re found at non-traditional retailers. Stores more focused on design and fashion such as The Closet, DDC Lab, and Hammer Museum at UCLA.
Nooka timepieces run from the simple set of $130 up to $4000 for exotic bands and crystal studs. For more information visit www.Nooka.com Published Jun 20, 2008 © Copyright 2003-2004 by LA Splash.com |
