I remember this phone always being a challenge in my youth. We had one when I was growing up. It came from my Grandfather’s house. He always had the coolest, but not the most practical, things. This phone was not designed with a growing teenager in mind. My conversations on the phone when I was 15 or 16 consisted of me sitting on the floor frantically sewing the legs of my Levis so tight I could barely squeeze my foot through with the phone resting on my shoulder as I repeated the words ‘ohmygawd no way” to a friend on the other line. Because of its sleek Calatrava-esque form, it was impossible for me to comfortably hold the phone between my shoulder and ear as I sewed or singed my hair with a curling iron. It was heavy and it would often slip down to the floor hanging up on my friends.
There was a big red button on the bottom. With a gentle touch, it would immediately disconnect the line.
The design also caused additional problems, it was bottom heavy and like a weeble-wobble, it liked to sit upright. If a caller was inquiring to speak with my mom, often times I would say “one moment please” then set it straight down accidentally hanging up. Irritated, the caller always called back.
Now that I am much older and spend less and less time on the telephone, I have new respect and admiration for its elegant design aesthetic. But for the record when I am talking to my friends all these years later, I still say “ohmygawd no way”.
Phone by Ericsson, a Swedish telephone manufacturer (est. 1876); phone designed in 1954 by Hugo Blomberg and Ralph Lysell and put into production by 1957. Image from MoMA.
10 comments:
I never had an Ericofon, but I always wanted one!
Here's a question: Did you have a phone on the wall in the kitchen with like a 40 foot cord? Ours was long enough I could sit and talk at the bottom of the basement stairs.
Soodie!great post & I spend less time on the phone too-thanks to email. Do you still stitch those levis legs down to a pencil point? la
David, we had a mustard colored dial phone on the wall -- it matched the mustard and cream gingham cafe curtains in the kitchen. Ours too was about 40 feet long -- I would twirl myself about 20 times in that cord while I was gabbing on the phone which would piss my mom off who would yell: stop stretching the cord.
At least you could sit at the bottom of the stairs and not have any parents hear you plotting any underage drinking plans for the coming weekend.
GT, no I don't. In fact, years later when I ripped out all the stitches of those well-worn and faded pegged levis, I would have dark blue triangles on the inside legs rendering them useless. All of those pairs ended up being cut off into jean shorts. That was still a long time ago...
This phone is too cool! But so confusing! It took me a minute to figure it out in my head...
Lauren
"ohmygawd no way" i always thought that phone was french.
now i say OMG when i talk with my friends by email.
Lauren, you just lift up the phone and get a dial tone and when you're done set it back down to hang up. It is that red button that turns it on and off. It was kind of a pain to dial -- you would have to firmly hold the neck of the phone while you dialed with the other hand which would make the phone wobbly. Sometimes your finger would slide out of the dial hole and graze across the red button hanging it up and you would have to start all over again.
The phone still looks pretty swanky -- standing alone on a small console table.
We even had a telephone table in the hallway, and as a teenager I would lay on the floor in the hallway with my feet propped up on it!
Oh and David we did not have a long cord on the phone growing up, however I would joke about my first home, that the telephone cord could reach into every single room, (small house needles to say)
Karena, they certainly made phones indestructable back then. You could run one over with a car and it would still hold up unscratched. Cell phones today do not last. And they are so easy to loose...
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