The Gallery of Iridescent Opulence

Oneshift test drove the Rolls-Royce Phantom recently and one of its most intriguing features is The Gallery. A recap: it’s a fully customisable space that sits prominently on the dashboard, free to be curated according to the owner’s whim and fancy. Because of its prime real estate, sitting within the eye level of passengers, it is the focal point of the whole interior.

Rolls-Royce invited us to an event co-hosted with Nature Squared to discuss more about The Gallery as well as to present a commissioned piece done by Nature Squared entitled ‘Iridescent Opulence’. It was the perfect opportunity for Oneshift to dive deeper into the concept of the Gallery as well as to discover the bespoke possibilities for it.

Michael Bryden, Lead Designer, Bespoke Design at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, made his way from Goodwood, United Kingdom to introduce The Gallery as well as some existing designs that have already been done. Michael is no stranger to bespoke - one of his most significant projects was the Dawn Aero Cowling that premiered at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show, one of the most prominent and eye-catching bespoke creations in recent memory.

He explained that The Gallery concept is ‘unprecedented’ in the automotive industry, something that has also been carefully engineered too. The Gallery is climate controlled to ensure that the valuable design that sits within stays unblemished for the life of the car. It also meant that during the production process, The Gallery is made in a clean lab that has strict moisture and temperature control. Because it is sealed for life, not so much as a fingerprint is allowed to leave its trace.

Michael emphasised that designs are very much a ‘one-to-one service, working with bespoke customers’. One example is ‘Iridescent Opulence’, a labour of love by Nature Squared that is a result of some 3,000-3,500 feathers of roosters. Feathers were chosen for their natural beauty and colour, something that is in deep contrast to the machined and engineered materials in the car. Lay Koon Tan, the founder of Nature Squared, shared that the feathers, along with all of the raw materials for their projects, are responsibly sourced. The company ensures that whatever they use is sustainable and natural. They have even gone so far as to encourage clients to ship their creations rather than to fly them, to cut down on their carbon footprint.

Because feathers are naturally occurring, they are often tarnished by the harshness of the elements. Therefore part of the process was sorting out the available feathers to find the perfect ones deemed suitable for the design. These were then applied by hand by artisans skilled in their heritage craft, often specialists in their own unique field. They are often located in developing countries, and Lay Koon believes that giving value to these fast disappearing crafts will help local craftsmen make a living for themselves. Believe it or not, the feathers have also been tested to extreme heat and cold cycles, so the tropical and humid weather in Singapore should not pose a problem.

Global demand for Rolls-Royce Bespoke like the artworks created for The Gallery has reached unprecedented new levels. To encapsulate this trend, Rolls-Royce presented the Horology Phantom, Digital Soul Phantom and Arabian Gulf Phantom to demonstrate its bespoke capabilities. What would you put in your Gallery?

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