Polaroid’s new Eames-themed camera is a rare artist collaboration done right
Photography and Polaroids were long in the legendary industrial designers’ DNA—a new camera makes it official.
These days, artist collaborations often feel unartistic—if not totally unhinged. Which is why it’s simultaneously refreshing and surprising to see one rooted in a bit more authenticity—like the new Polaroid Now Generation 2 Eames Edition.
Eames Demetrios is the long-running director of the Eames Office, and the grandchild of industrial design icons Charles and Ray Eames. He recalls one particular visit from them when he was a child growing up in San Francisco. They came packing a new invention from Polaroid founder Edwin Land—who Demetrios and others have dubbed “the Steve Jobs of his generation.”
“Charles just had the most impish smile on his face, and we knew that he was up to something,” Demetrios says. “He took our pictures with what turned out to be the Polaroid SX-70. And he handed the [undeveloped photos] to us and he said, ‘Watch this.’ And then it came to life miraculously before us, and he just loved that theatrical aspect of it. It was genuinely something that captured [Charles and Ray’s] imagination.”
While Land had invented a clunkier camera for instant photography in 1947, the SX-70 essentially launched instant cameras into the mainstream. Land brought the Eamses on board to help promote it through a much-lauded 1972 short film, which showed off its innovative and complex technical capabilities with masterful simplicity. It helped rocket the camera (and Polaroid) into a new stratosphere.
In retrospect, Demetrios says the Eameses were an ideal match for Land and his creation. They had long used photography in their design process “as a way of understanding”—so much so that Demetrios says his family has now donated nearly a million images to the Library of Congress.
“I talked to one guy who worked in their office, and he said, ‘Charles really didn’t understand the prototype until he had photographed it.’ What he was saying is that the act of looking at things through the lens and using that to communicate to others was an essential part of how they approached things.” While they had maintained a photo lab in their office, the SX-70 put the darkroom directly into the body of the camera, making that feedback loop even tighter.
BUILDING THE POLAROID EAMES EDITION
Demetrios says the $129 limited-edition Eames x Polaroid camera has been in the works for about a year-and-a-half. While working on the design, his office was first drawn to the idea of playing with color. Whereas some might have deferred to a maximalist style, perhaps with an all-encompassing Toy pattern, the final product arrives in a Elephant Hide Gray scheme. Charles once described the subdued color as “a black with feeling;” it was one of the three original colors of the Eames’ fiberglass chairs. An Eames logo and icon accent the front, and the Toy pattern indeed does make a cameo, but in the wrist strap.
The camera boasts a double-exposure mode (a nod to the capabilities of the SX-70), as well as a self-timer and two-lens autofocus system. The camera is also made with 40% recycled materials, is rechargeable, and works with Polaroid i-Type and 600 film.
It all makes for a reserved, handsome and functional system—and one that feels most welcome in a world of Dutch Masters x Doc Martens.
“Photography wasn’t casual—it was really part of their design process,” Demetrios says. “I think it’s a great homage to something that they cared about.”
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