My mother bought this for me in 1971 when it came out. I still have it, it's still working, and I still use it. I've never had another one. I'm posting this for a couple of reasons - first, it just goes to show that companies can make things that last decades if they feel like it. And second, design since the 60 and 70s has not superseded that era either in style or longevity.
Looks like the Braun HLD 6/61 but actually says it's a P-1000C. (?) I'm wondering if it's an early prototype.
The dryer is put together with screws not glue, so you can take it apart and repair and clean it. Every time I look at it, it makes me lament the ugliness and waste of most design since. Apparently this hair dryer is in the MOMA Permanent Collection and you can see why.
This HLD 6/61 is slightly different than the examples you usually see online, which have a bevel at the gun end and buttons where a trigger would be, at the front of the handle. The buttons here are on the side instead - I think it's probably the very first model before later modifications. (Maybe it even has a different model number?)
Anyway, it just goes to show that you can build tools and appliances to last, if you feel like it. This can't have been that expensive in 1971 because my parents were living on a shoestring. Though my science-y father knew tools and would have felt it was cheaper in the long run to buy things that were well made. We could do this again. If our species survives.
Tags: Braun 1970s 1971 Braun HLD 6/61 hair dryer white Greubel Jurgen Greubel minimalism 70s modernism planned obsolescence design built to last P-1000C
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About ten years ago there was a corporate rebranding of the Athabasca tar sands. Apparently we're now supposed to call it the "oil sands" or oilfields or something. But I grew up in BC and we always called them the tar sands, as this souvenir attests. After my grandfather died I was emptying his house and I found this tar sands memento in his office.
Look at this stuff, then try to imagine how much solvent you'd have to add to it to make it flow through a pipeline. Once solvent's added the mixture is called "diluted bitumen" or "dilbit" and it's extremely toxic. This is what we call "dirty oil."
I've put this into Creative Commons - just attribute please! Thanks.
Tags: tar tar sands oil sands Alberta Fort McMurray petroleum souvenir Athabasca tar sands oil oil industry dirty oil diluted bitumen bitumen dilbit Fort Mac sample
Tags: Quito Ecuador 2014
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Tags: Quito Ecuador 2014
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