Here’s an idea from Solutions, a design agency that is on second place in the German design companies rating made by the popular special interest magazine »Werben und Verkaufen« (where the companies are rated on their annual turnover).

Basically it is this: take an Airbus 380, a luxury car, caviar, diamonds, an expensive painting, an opera singer like Anna Netrebko, literature from Dostojevski and french gourmet chef – and ready is »Ladyplane«. The idea behind Ladyplane is to inspire women for extravagant flight trips that »yet are a domain of the male and only 5% are female«, as Dagmar Kudszus, Industrial Designer at Solutions writes.

»We are constantly in search, uncover drawbacks and find market gaps. As the discourse about themes that are relevant to design gets more and more pushed into background, we started out to write about the things we do.«

Well – I agree, as getting into discourse is generally important. And here we even have an especially urgent case. Either the concept is a really banal try to earn some money on the way back to feudalistic structures or it is kind of a subversive Critical Design that was only done to provoke a debate about design as indulgence. For example if designers in future want to act as servants that amuse the upper class with exclusive stuff. But it seems questionable if really the latter was the intent.

But let’s have a look on the concept: the interior of the plane looks a bit like a scenery from an old science fiction. The pillars got something from »The Tripods« and the ceiling reminds of a gigantic eye. You see the woman wearing a bikini which rather reflects the macho driven idea James Bond would have on his mind when he thinks of girls in planes than a concept that is meant to specially considers female users. Surely air con would cater for stiff nipples of the subject…

It is really remarkable that this concept derives from a top-ranked design agency like Solutions. Now, as the ranking is measured on the annual turnover must the designer understand that this finally is the way to make money? I am sure that at least in Moscow or Dubai there would be lots of clients for those kinds of ideas.