Marcel Winatschek

Black Plastic

Every piece of tech I own looks basically the same—black plastic, cables, nothing worth looking at twice. At some point the industry decided design doesn’t matter, or at least matters less than whether something works. I stopped looking for beautiful technology years ago.

There’s this thing going around called FemTech, and the basic idea is so simple it feels weird to talk about: a product can look good and work well at the same time. Hair removal devices you’d actually want to own. Apps that feel designed instead of like someone’s side project. Home devices that don’t look like they’re apologizing for being technology.

What gets me is that it took creating an entire separate category—and specifically marketing it to women—to make that feel normal. That products could be both functional and beautiful. That design matters. The fact that this is notable at all tells you something about who’s been making decisions in tech.