Sony announced this week that the cute bean-shaped WALKMAN will be discontinued effectively in April 2006. Oliver Duff reports that after less than six months on the market, Sony’s Walkman Bean is to be discontinued – a victim of the digital revolution and the fashion for ruthlessly upgrading. Duff is indeed correct.
During its debut, the WALKMAN Bean was marketed by Sony as part of its “gadgets for girls” campaign. Despite its short lifecycle, this cute little device has adorned models as they struts the fashion runway. In fact, the WALKMAN Bean was only recently used by Luella Bartley to accessorize her Fall/Winter 2006 collection.
“I’m motivated by a new sense of dressing up in London with clubs full of beautiful girls in forties-inspired outfits,” Bartley said. “The new, modern form of burlesque, the tattooed women of the forties and of course slow, feminine, sexy, music perfect to listen to on a Walkman device.”
Also at the show, the Luella for Walkman “Gadgets for Girls” Lounge offered guests the opportunity to get a close up of the specially designed phones and music players. “My life has a soundtrack,” Bartley noted. “And it’s usually playing back on a Walkman.”
