Longing for Sexy Packaging

Mallet's Mallet
Those of you (like me) who enjoy wordplay will remember Mallets' Mallet and the various word association games it spawned. If you're less of a geek and haven't watched "That Was 1990" recently, you may need reminding:

I start by saying a word, for instance "Tree".

You have to say a word which can be associated with this word (no hesitation or you'll get whacked), for instance "wood" (steady on).

Now it's my turn again - I say "pulp".

Now we're really cooking - you say "paper".

I say "cardboard"

You say "box"

I say "packaging".

You say "sexy"...and...

Timmy's mallet comes crashing down on your head.

Packaging: Sexy         Sexy:Packaging

"Packaging" and "Sexy" may not be your typical free association coupling but is it really such an oxymoron?

Soft creases (right), smooth folds (oo-er), curves (yes...), fastenings (phwoar), PVC(!), smoothness (keep going...), stiffness (ooh la la)...

Sexiness abounds in packaging terminology (if you look for it!). And yet, despite Marks and Spencer having invented "food porn" with its "this is not just food" campaign, no one in the UK seems to believe that packaging itself is sexy.

Japanese Ritual of Undressing Gifts

Attitudes are rather different in Japan - attitudes to sex and to packaging. Although I'd love to have time and license to begin an ethnographic study of the former, my focus here is on the latter...

Packaging has a place within courtship rituals in Japan, and unwrapping a gift has as many connotations as one might expect. And rightly so...as a good friend once told me: "as soon as I see an innuendo in my writing I whip it out immediately".

Forgive me for quoting such a long extract here, but the following passage summarises the allure of sexy packaging quite brilliantly:

"The aesthetics of Japanese packaging I would like to explore is in its everyday context, distinguished from its museum or display setting in which we are not allowed to handle and open it. Packaging, as a physical object, exists in space; however, the experience of handling the package involves an important temporal dimension. Because our ordinary experience of opening a package is so integrated into our everyday life, we seldom reflect upon this temporal aesthetic dimension. Whether it be untying the cord made of straw for stringing together a row of fish, opening a bag of bamboo sheath wrapping sweets, peeling off bamboo wrapping for candies, removing the lid of a can or a box for crackers, or unwrapping the cloth covering to reveal a gift in- side, itself also housed in a box, the process of opening a package normally involves the following sequence: receiving and beholding the package, which invites us to open it; the act of opening, which engages our body movement; and exposing the content, which was initially hidden entirely or in part from our view and touch. In short, the entire experience is guided by the allure of the hidden or the obscured."

[extract from Saito, Y. (1999) "Japanese Aesthetics of Packaging", The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 57, No. 2]

So, to undress a product's packaging is to reveal the obscured, to engage the imagination and enhance the pleasure of consuming the hidden delights.

Anyone unwrapping a toy at Christmas knows that we Brits are anything but patient and want immediate gratification, not a ritualised pleasure-enhancing journey.

The Slow Packaging Movement
So let's start a revolution from our bed.

Let's slow our packaging down - let's find new and environmentally friendly ways to enhance the pleasure of undressing a product without falling foul of the over-packaging police.

We're not talking excess - there's nothing as unappealing as too much perfume, over-dressing or being too obvious, but with subtlety, craft, great design, and acknowledging the allure of the hidden or the obscured let's bring sexy back.


........................................................
...Or maybe it's just me! Anyone know a good psychiatrist?