Let’s admit it, nostalgia is the big trend of recent years.
Nostalgia that brings back accessories like wired headphones or low-rise jeans, that pushes us to rewatch the classic rom-coms and that has an effect inside our homes too, where a vintage object at least thirty years old is now a must.
Everything that came out of the ’80s and ’90s is a potential new trend, or a new-old object returning to our lives, and we have found the next one we won’t be able to live without.
Personally, one of the things I miss most from when I was a child is the landline phone. The one in my memories is, to be precise, a Sirio by SIP in a lovely shade of red, but what I miss in particular is what it represented: phone calls weren’t something you squeezed in between chores, something you did while thinking about or doing something else entirely, they were a commitment. You had to stop, sit down and really listen to whoever was on the other end, with the certainty that whoever was at the other end of the line was also still and seated, listening to us.
No less important is the fact that, unlike today’s phones with their minimal, stripped-down design, the handset and its coiled cord had an extreme elegance, and modernity too. And this is where the nostalgia comes in.
That’s why, when I came across the Pop Phone by Native Union, I couldn’t help but smile.
For those who don’t know it, Native Union is a tech accessories brand founded in 2009 by Igor Duc and John Brunner, with its design developed in Paris. Over the years it has become a name you can find in Apple Stores as well as in luxury boutiques, and its idea is simple. A cable, a case or a charger shouldn’t be boring. Today the brand is B Corp certified and works with recycled materials.
The funniest part is that the brand’s story starts with a handset. Native Union’s first product was in fact a retro handset, and today the Pop Phone returns in a version reimagined for today’s devices. It connects to the USB-C port of smartphones, tablets and computers, and works with no batteries to charge and no Bluetooth pairing to do. You plug it in and you talk.
On the handle you’ll find the button to answer and the one to hang up, the microphone and speaker are designed for both calls and video calls, and of course the fantastic coiled cord is there too.
Like any self-respecting phone, the Pop Phone plays a lot with color. Alarm Red, Pine, Sandstone, Lemon, Candy, Azur, Slate Green and a Black for those who prefer to keep it understated, joined by the limited editions Bubble Gum and Mirror and a transparent version made for the Japanese MoMA Design Stores.
Sure, it’s not the most practical accessory in the world, and it doesn’t pretend to replace the earphones we now talk through while walking, answering a message and checking the map all at once. But it does have the merit of putting back in our hands an object that you can see, that has weight and color, and that asks us for something we haven’t done in a while. To stop, sit down and truly listen to whoever is on the other end of the line.
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