Fashion statement: A Motorola flip-phone from 2006.
In technology, fashion tends to move in one direction: forward. But just as vinyl sales are booming in the age of Spotify, so the iPhone 6 must now compete with the flip-phone, its unlikely rival for the title of 2014's coolest communications handset.
Last week, 26-year-old stylista and musical superstar
Rihanna was photographed leaving a New York restaurant with a clamshell clamped to her ear (see video below). Like flared trousers and facial hair, it appears these antediluvian devices are getting another shot at chicness.
The trend appears to have originated in the handbag of Anna Wintour, who earlier this year was spotted peering at the screen of a flip-phone she had first acquired in approximately 2004 - before she switched to a BlackBerry and, later, an iPhone.
Wintour-watchers interpreted her reversion to pre-smartphone technology as a style statement, but the Vogue editor, who is 65, is far from alone among her age group. Iggy Pop, 67, recently told The Cut website that he owns a flip-phone, "because you can drop it a lot and it won't break, and when you want to text it still has three letters to each button".
Meanwhile, in Korea, both Samsung and LG have launched brand new flip-smartphones aimed at the elderly. LG says it designed its Wine Smart handset after a round of market research found that many older consumers were intimidated by the small buttons and complicated features of many modern touch-screen smartphones.
