Seeing it before it's obvious.
A functional urn with Bluetooth speaker isn't novelty—it's the logical endpoint of luxury's obsession with existential aesthetics. When death becomes a lifestyle accessory, we've crossed from memento mori into full merchandising of mortality. This collaboration signals a cultural moment where the morbid isn't transgressive anymore; it's just another flex.
Luxury is systematizing the personal. From Gwyneth's 'energised' auction pieces to AI tools democratising creative gatekeeping to customisable AI personalities, the pattern is clear: brands and tech are packaging individuality, memory, and taste as scalable products. The urn speaker isn't morbid—it's just the most honest version of what luxury's been doing: selling you a mythology about your own significance.
Amazon's customisable Alexa personalities and Apple's Dynamic Island on laptops suggest a near-term future where every digital product offers personality presets. This moves beyond personalisation into something darker: the industrialisation of tone, taste, and temporal identity. Watch for luxury brands to weaponise this—offering 'mood states' and 'life phases' as premium features.