Why Do Rich People Love Fancy Toilets?
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This month, fashion designer Marc Jacobs revealed, with stunningly long, rhinestoned nails, his latest obsession: a white TOTO toilet in his home. It's surrounded by green marble walls, it has a control center to manage functions like jetting water and gusts of warm air, and the sensory cover lifts up as soon as you come near it. "The most [frequently asked question] that I've been getting recently is how you keep yourself clean," he told his Instagram followers. "And TOTOs are much more hygienic and certainly greener than paper."
The rise of fancy toilets can be seen from every level, from blue-chip art to public necessity. In 2019, an 18-karat gold toilet (valued at $5.95 million) named "America" by Maurizio Cattelan was so coveted that it was stolen from an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace. It took four years for the robbers to be charged with theft. If you're besties with the rapper Drake, you might receive a TOTO toilet (or four) as a birthday gift, just like DJ Khaled did for his 47th birthday. While residents of San Francisco's Tony Noe Valley celebrated the opening of a $1.7 million public restroom, Abbey Whalen continues to rack up followers (she's over 270,000 on TikTok) for reviewing bathrooms around the world, from the toilets in Hermes to those on Spirit airplanes. In a world where design aficionados are trigger-happy to post their new Mario Bellini couches or china pantries, could it be that the next big-deal status symbol for your home is something that's long been ignored?
But, today's high-end porcelain thrones aren't the toilets of yore. Take Kohler's Numi 2.0 model, to begin with. It is a toilet Tesla: modern, high-tech, and fun, thanks in part to its ambiant lighting and speaker system. "Luxury, especially in the context of the cultural renaissance of quiet luxury, is about restraint and the purposeful attention to quality and details," Michael Corr, Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Kohler tells T&C. "It is a thematic homage to making everyday moments and rituals better through the intention of use."
Traditionally, the most ornate bathrooms would have a marble toilet next to a separate bidet. But, high-tech toilets that combine both—a combo known as a washlet and pioneered by TOTO in the 1980s—are slowly coming into favor in America. They're already reportedly in more than 80% of Japanese homes, according to Japan Today,
They're so popular, in fact, that TOTO toilets have their own Museum in Kitakyushu, Japan. Shihohiko Takahashi, an urban designer and professor emeritus of Kanagawa University explained to CNN that the appliance addressed the "nation's 'shame culture'" while also promoting Japan as a high-tech innovator."
Could a similar cultural impact be taking place in the U.S.? "If we're being candid, going to the bathroom is still a taboo topic," Charlotte, NC-based interior designer Layton Campbell tells T&C. "To have a bidet or an advanced toilet here is considered a luxury, but it's really just hygiene and we shouldn't be so prudish about it."
So, how should one go about putting theory into practice? While the bathrooms off a primary bedroom, or others that people live in full time, are a given, adding these thrones to guest bedrooms and powder rooms are how status is truly telegraphed.
"Welcoming friends into your home is one of life's great pleasures, and the guest water closet has emerged as something of a star player for discerning hosts," James Lentaigne, the creative director of bathroom appliance company Drummonds tells T&C. (Conveniently, they've just launched a collection with interior designer Steven Gambrel to help glamorize your washroom). It's true: water closets and guest bathrooms are easy opportunities to say to your guests: I can indulge in luxurious toiletries, and I have enough means so that you can, too. I can putde Gournay wallpaper in my bathroom and yours. Those hand towels? Those are Matouk, honey, and we switch them out for SFERRA every once in a while.
But, Campbell also addresses the shock value a super-charged toilet might have on guests. "If someone is only there for dinner, then the likelihood of going through those steps of a bidet might make it obvious. But, a guest room is always an appropriate place to put it, and guests would probably appreciate that."
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