Rolls-Royce beauty in the subtlest details
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and the world of Haute Couture have long been bound by a common philosophy – to take the very finest materials and craft them into the most exquisite and desirable luxury goods, appointed to the customer’s exact specifications.
Fittingly, the marque’s first showroom in Conduit Street, Mayfair was founded a short step from London’s famous centre of tailoring excellence, Savile Row. Here, Sir Henry Royce and his partner The Honourable Charles Rolls echoed the offerings of their illustrious neighbours by providing London’s most stylish denizens with the automotive equivalent of the finest cloths; a perfectly engineered Rolls-Royce chassis and running gear.
The customer would then call upon their preferred coachbuilder, who would furnish the car with personal touches and accoutrements specified perfectly to their requirements.
A century later, a bold new generation of customers continue to share the same appetite for commissioning expressions of their taste and lifestyle. ‘Wraith – Inspired by Fashion’ provides a modern take on this grand tradition. Akin to commissioning a fine suit or elegant piece of couture, the journey of creating a highly Bespoke Rolls-Royce motor car begins at the marque’s equivalent of the tailor’s atelier, the Bespoke Design Studio at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, England.
Here, the Designers honed the aesthetic theme of the car, drawing inspiration from colour palettes, materials and techniques used in the world of high fashion. The result is an extraordinary interpretation of Wraith’s characteristic blend of power, style and drama.
“This iteration of Wraith provides a canvas for materials and finishes most commonly associated with the world of fashion. Inspiration was sourced from international catwalks and Bespoke Tailors, resulting in an aesthetically stunning and sartorially on-point motor car ” commented Giles Taylor, Director of Design for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
‘Wraith – Inspired by Fashion’ two-tone exterior colour scheme of Andalucian White and Arctic White offers a neutral setting for a choice of accent colours, namely Jasmine, Tailored Purple or Mugello Red. Wraith’s signature shoulder-line is accentuated deftly with the addition of a hand-applied feature-line in the chosen highlight colour, alluding to the divergent interior of the motor car.
Like the finest Bespoke garments, beauty is found in the subtlest details. On opening Wraith’s coach-doors you will find a contemporary impression of the car’s classic Arctic White and Black interior colour scheme. Beyond the traditional placement of embroidered headrests, seat stitching and piping, the accent colour has found an elegant new application via a striking two-tone composition steering wheel.
A seamless stitch, a highly complex craft technique from the world of fine tailoring, was mastered and applied to the wheel by the craftspeople in the Leather Shop at the Home of Rolls-Royce.
“As a young designer in a dynamic field, it’s important for me to share the exciting honour I’ve been given to help define the style and fashion of the most iconic luxury brand in the world. Wraith ‘Inspired by Fashion’ provides and exquisite canvass to create a cool, daring and seductive motoring style, and I look forward to sharing our work with the world at the event in New York,” said Michelle Lusby, Colour and Materials Designer for the Rolls-Royce Motor Car Bespoke Design Team.
The very finest garments are crafted exclusively from the most luxurious materials – with tactility, comfort and quality as important an attribute as the aesthetic of the piece itself. The Bespoke design team took inspiration from this approach in appointing the car’s front and rear door pockets with fine silks, adorned with an abstract representation of the Spirit of Ecstasy with each emblem set precisely at fifty-five degrees to complement the lines of the door.
The remarkable craftsmanship and attention-to-detail employed in the creation of any Rolls-Royce is evident in the exquisite application of wood to the dashboard, with the lacquering process for ‘Wraith – Inspired by Fashion’ alone taking nine days to painstakingly complete. This is completed elegantly with the integration of a Bespoke Clock, set as a piece of jewellery, styled exclusively to emit a pearl effect, reminiscent of silk fabrics.
The contemporary fashion theme is completed with the integration of welting, a specialist technique most commonly associated with Bespoke tailoring. Presented as a colourful silk strip, the welting stylishly frames Wraith’s signature leather door-panel.
To mark the occasion of the creation of this timeless Wraith, the motor car took part in a landmark shoot on the production line at the Home of Rolls-Royce in the South of England. The luxurious materials and distinctive features presented in the motor car were accentuated by fashion models, set against a backdrop of the hand-made motor cars.
Fashion connoisseur Olivia Palermo was among the first to view the new Rolls-Royce ‘Wraith – Inspired by Fashion’, receiving its world premiere this evening in New York. Olivia, renowned for her impeccable sense of style, enjoyed a private preview of the motor car before the event opened to a high profile roster of guests including fashion designers, commentators and other famous faces.
The remarkable success of Wraith in attracting a new generation of successful entrepreneurs to the marque has been underpinned by a surge in demand for Bespoke personalisation – a remarkable 95% of all Wraith motor cars left the Home of Rolls-Royce with an element of Bespoke design last year, giving bold expression to the notion that Bespoke is Rolls-Royce.
Rolls-Royce notes that some 95 percent of Wraiths leave the factory with at least one bespoke element, so odds are good that if you’re extraordinarily wealthy and order this one, you’ll still end up customizing it in your personal way.
Rolls-Royce Wraith has been featured as one of The Best of luxury cars by Luxury Today.
