It's ashame that this is the least paid attention to philosophy in the product development industry today.  Long-lasting designs should no longer be accepted in today's unenvironmentally-friendly world.  Fashionable trends are one of the biggest wastes our society creates.  These trends rely solely on disposable goods to even exist.  How do we still accept this?  It's something that needs to change rapidly for us to keep breathing fresh air, drinking clean water, and have access to the millions of resources we all believe we need.  It's never been more important that design is long-lasting.

 

For the most part, timelessness within a design is actually one of the easiest things to integrate into designs.  This is due to the sheer mass of previous consumer products we've seen outlast these fashionable trends to stand the test of time.  There's nothing wrong with pulling design cues from other successful products, especially when it's for the benefit of the earth we live on.  In fact, the longer we remain in the middle of the industrial revolution, the easier it will get to create long-lasting designs, as we'll have more and more design cues to pull from.

 

Even though Dieter Rams didn't initially intend for long-lasting design to refer to anything to do with the environment, as he covers this in one of his other philosophies, we don't feel the same.  Fashion trends are inherently bad for our environment, and therefore we need to do a much better job of keeping everything we design as fashionable as possible for as long as possible.  For us, creating timeless products is expected, as it's our duty as product developers to be stewards of the earth.  If we don't spear-head this massive effort, who else even could?  We've placed ourselves at the forefront of where product ideas are born, so it only make sense that we would take ownership over the ability of the products we create to last as long as they possibly can.