On The Luxury of Time

Time’s having a bit of a rebrand. Slower lifestyles and longer lifespans are becoming increasingly coveted, a desire for a leisurely pace rather than endless efficiency.

In The Atlantic’s limited podcast series How To Keep Time, cohosts Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost discuss everything from BeReal to time capsules; looking busy and wasting time to tips on time from the universe.?

After binging all six episodes, I turned to my colleagues to ask (via survey) “If you had an extra hour tacked onto every day, how would you spend it?”, promising anonymity if I were to share their responses. Though, for those who know the Matter Of Form team well, it’s perhaps not as anonymous as they’d like.

Not to insult my coworkers but their answers were what you’d expect from full-time jobholders: catching up on sleep, ploughing through their bedside book stack, spending quality time with their families, cheffing up a storm in the kitchen, zenning out during yoga or breaking a sweat in the gym. One response opened with: “I’d probably waste it.” Another would specifically dedicate said hour to life drawing – “any chance to see someone naked daily.”?

Entertained, I decided to play around with the scale of the question.?

If you were given an extra month this year, how would you spend it?

Most of them said something along the lines of travel; “more visits home”; “Ireland and Europe for a month”; “working remotely, somewhere different each year”; “Backpacking. Meditation. Wim Hof.”?

One was particularly revealing:

“If I was contractually bound to work 13 months instead of 12, then I would pass through the 'extra month' in the same Sisyphean style that I currently pass every day, night, hour, month. Working, followed by sleeping, followed by the angst and misery that every day brings. I still do not know what my boulder is made of, yet I push it up my Olympus.

That said, if I was given a month of LEISURE – then I would pack up my things and go work in San Tropez as a beach boy for a month so that I could wear tight-fitting stripy clothes on the beach and serve cocktails to the upper echelons of society.”

Yikes.

As well as being a bit of fun, what everyone’s answers revealed is that time is, in many ways, the ultimate luxury good. What a piece from The New York Times calls “A Hidden Currency of Incalculable Worth”.?

You may remember when, in December 2021, a Love Island influencer set the internet ablaze with a comment made on Steven Bartlett’s podcast: The Diary of a CEO.?

“We all have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyoncé”, she said. Factually, she’s not wrong – but struck in the wrong tone and the court of public opinion will have a field day.?

Language is important here. The state of being ‘time-poor’ is dictated by many things; wealth, career, age, success. ‘Free’ time is not necessarily the same as ‘quality’ time and neither of these are things everyone can afford.?

Though we occasionally pass it, we mostly speak of spending time on something or another. And if we’re not spending it, we’re wasting it, it seems. Two sides of the same coin – time is either a thief or a gift. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, our perceptions of time can be subjectively warped.?

Access to time isn’t the luxury it was once – the ubiquity of smartphones means anyone near a screen can know the exact hour, minute and second without needing the ability to read an analogue clock. Yet timepieces continue to be prized possessions. More than just instruments for telling time, watches and clocks are widely considered works of art, having long embodied the blend of innovation and craftsmanship.

So although tech has left its indelible mark on our relationship with time, it continues to be a motif of luxury. Both a material and conceptual one.?

There’s something hugely compelling about people dedicating their most finite resource to creating beautiful things. It’s perhaps the reason behind Bottega Veneta’s and LVMH’s plans to open schools for artisanal craftsmanship.? The investment of time to craft and skill is the primary driver of value for so many luxury products and brands. It’s what people buy into – from Rimowa suitcases to antiques.?

It’s why the idea of heirloom quality is making a comeback. It’s a desire that tracks with wider luxury audience shifts and the asset culture so prevalent in 2024. As we continue to move into the value era, where possessions are assets and worth is defined by more than price tags, buyers increasingly perceive their purchases as investments – focusing on high-quality items with meaning and durability that can stand the test of time and be passed from generation to generation.

By 2030, huge swathes of the world including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the States will have record old-age populations –?and not only are we living longer, we’re living better. Or at least we’re trying to. Most of us are attempting to strike a balance between ‘living in the moment’ and living in as many moments as possible.?

One of our articles earlier this year explored the uptick of longevity in the context of wellness hospitality –?from Blue Zones to the tech billionaire trying to de-age using his son’s blood, we’re all trying to manipulate time in some form or another. This May, Six Senses Ibiza is hosting a “Young Forever” retreat led by longevity expert Dr Mark Hyman; elsewhere Four Seasons Resort Maui offers stem cell therapy and NAD+ as part of the package and, instead of bubbles, 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay on Kauai welcomes visitors with a B12 shot.

When most of our lives are all about the hustle, the grind or just getting through each day, stories, products and experiences that can slow our sense of time are what everyone – not just the affluent –?is seeking out. Time has become commoditised. Now so rare and precious that any ‘additional’ or ‘surplus’ moments hold immense value. Not to mention the time pressure our planet is under, which demands we think and design for beyond our lifetimes, which are only getting longer.

We talk about ‘healthy friction’ a lot at Matter Of Form. The need to craft moments and touch points along experiences that slow the pace, that allow people to savour the good bits and make the final destination even sweeter. Because in a race to the finish, we end up wasting our most valuable possession.?