For a very long time, what inspired envy more than anything else were ladies I saw on the subway carrying authentic Hermes Birkin bags.  Now, what inspires envy more than anything else are kids I see on the subway sporting Dr. Dre Beats “Studio” headphones.  They’ve been designed by the rapper/producer to deliver recorded music in all its richness while reducing outside noise.  And they’ve been designed to call attention to themselves.  They’re huge – each earpad is fist-sized, and hides a pair of AAA batteries – and they’re awesome.  They come in all different colors but my favorite are the red ones, which are an impossible-to-avoid shade right between fire engine and Ferrari.  It’s a joyous, electric color.

Unlike a lot of fancy headphones, the “Studio” headphones are designed so that the headband, the earpads, and the connection between them all feel substantial.  These are headphones for a serious audiophile, that can cost more than an MP3 player, and that would look right on a DJ or a recording studio technician.  So it’s funny seeing them plugged into a tiny player or phone.  I remember the first generation of Walkmen, when the devices were showy and the headphones were small.  Since the release of the iPod and its little white earbuds, the listening device has became a discrete, precious object and the headphones have just about disappeared.  The Beats headphones turn that around, drawing attention away from the music player to the act of listening, and to the listener himself.  They turn headphones into fashion.

What puzzled me most about Steve Jobs was the personal uniform he adopted in mid-life: black mock turtleneck, faded Levi’s, and white running shoes.  How could someone so savvy about product design feel comfortable in such sad, suburban duds?  In an interview with a biographer that was released after his death, Jobs revealed that those sweaters, which I had assumed were from Land’s End, LLBean or some such fuddy-duddy purveyor, were custom-made for him by Japanese designer Issey Miyake.

After visiting a Sony factory in the 80’s and seeing the black uniforms Miyake had designed for the workers there, Jobs commissioned Miyake to design a nylon jacket with zip-out sleeves for Apple employees.  Miyake sent Jobs several prototypes, but by then the whole notion of a uniform had been rejected by Apple leadership.  But Jobs went ahead and implemented his own personal uniform, and asked Miyake to whip up scores of these simple, anonymous-looking sweaters.  Apparently he had over 60 of them when he died.  Why didn’t he commission a sweater that was amazing-looking and better-fitted, or ask Miyake to design his jeans and sneakers too?  It’s puzzling and also humanizing.  Hitherto the only really personal things I knew about Jobs (gleaned from this breezy, trashy, out-of-date biography) was that he had once dated Joan Baez, and that his favorite meal was a bowl of shredded carrots.  The story about the uniforms reminds us that all of Jobs’ ideas were not great ideas, and that he wasn’t consumed by good taste.