What are shoes, says Will.i.am after all, but protective equipment for the feet? We just forgot that this was their original purpose, because shoes have become a form of self-expression. You could not, ‘he walked inside a mall or a restaurant or a plane without shoes on’, just like you should not walk in without a mask. “But you don’t have to tell anyone to wear shoes,” he said. So if you can make a mask serve the same purpose (or multipurpose), you win.
Will.i.am spoke via Zoom from his Los Angeles headquarters, a space that includes a sound stage, a recording studio, his ‘fab lab’ (where he makes prototypes), and now his Xupermask team.
Will.i.am got the idea for Xupermask last March, just before his 45th birthday, when he filmed “The Voice” in Britain (he had been a judge on the show for ten years) and Europe began to lock up. . “I was worried about the fact that I would not be able to enter America, and even if I could get in, over a plane,” he said. So he called his hardware team and told them to work.
He has been immersed in and out of technology since he started founding Beats Electronics in 2006. In 2014, he developed a fashion smartwatch called Pulse, and in 2016, he got fashion earplugs that you could wear around your neck like jewels – Naomi Campbell and Kendall Jenner were ambassadors – but neither of the two products had probably not starting (probably the whole portable market is not exactly a rocket ship). He does not care. He likes research and development.
“I think L stands for learning, not for loss,” he said.
Now, however, he has the power of Honeywell behind him and is planning for Xupermask-related collaborations with artists and other brands. (He will not name names, although he did talk about how much he loved the collaboration with North Face and Gucci.) And he really does not think masks will disappear any time soon. Not if recent history is an indication.
“SARS happened in Japan and Southeast Asia, and they went through it, and they still wear masks,” he said, suggesting the same would apply in the West. Especially since masks also seem to have helped reduce flu cases. In any case, whatever happens on the ground, he expects masks on planes to be the new norm. “That’s what I hear,” he said.
He must feel.