o you remember that
happy time, oh so long
ago, when Dyson was
known for making
stylish and groundbreaking
homewares, rather than stylish and
groundbreaking ventilators?
I do, and just before the world
went loopy and the police started
arresting people for shopping for
non-essential Easter eggs, I was
fortunate enough to go to the
Dyson headquarters in
Malmesbury. Who could turn that
down? Apart from anything else,
‘Malmesbury’ is very pleasing to say
out loud, especially in a Roger
Moore voice. Mmm...almesbury.
At the time, I was allowed out of
the house, and Dyson had a new
product to show off: the Corrale
hair straightener.
The Corrale is an attempt by the
Great British Brand to do nothing
less than reinvent the hair
straightener. It does this by using
less heat – ‘for 50% less damage’ –
by being cordless, and using
flexible plates to grip your hair – not
my hair – in a new and exciting way
and yadda yadda yadda.
Now, as you can tell from the big
photo of me next to this piece, I am
not all that interested in hair
straighteners. But I was certainly
interested to go to rich, creamy and
fruity Mmmalmesbury, because I
wanted to see the top secret lair of
dashing air-movement magnate
Lord Dyson.
Set in the rolling and expensive
Cotswolds countryside, the Dyson
HQ sadly turned out to be neither
underground, nor hidden in a
volcano. It is bloody large and
impressive, however. There are
acres of workshops and testing
facilities. There’s a car park the size
of Croydon. There’s a staff cafeteria- one of
several,
where a fighter
jet hangs from the
ceiling, suspended
above Dyson’s dining
employees, almost like some
kind of threat. Oh and there’s also a
Harrier Jump Jet ‘parked’ outside
the main entrance. As you’d expect,
James Dyson is a fan of jets.
Then there are the converted
aircraft hangars where Dyson is
testing its new ventilators. These
were previously used as a student
social area, because another thing
Dyson HQ has attached to it is an
engineering college. Yes, really.
In fact, just by wondering about
the Dysonplex, you can see just
why the products developed there
command such high prices.
Dyson doesn’t only do a lot of
testing of its products, to ensure
person
pulls
straighteners through hair.
Of course, there’s something
funny about a company largely
staffed by blokes, developing
advanced haircare products that
will be used, in the main, by
women. Like any enterprise
devoted to engineering, Dyson is,
despite its best efforts to address
the balance, quite the sausage fest.
However, there is no doubting their
sincerity about wanting to develop
the most effective hair care
products possible – the effort
involved is tremendous.
The Corrale hair straightener, of
course, faced the same reception
as most new Dyson products, on
release. You could hear the gasps
at the sheer cost of it – at least
double what you’d pay for a GHD
hair straightener – from
Malmesbury to John O’Groats. The
BBC said the price of it would
‘make your hair curl’. Ho ho!
However, whatever you think of
Dyson, when you see the lengths
they go to in designing and testing
their products, it’s very hard to say
they are ‘over-priced’.
The Corrale is the culmination of
nearly a decade of work and
millions of pounds spent, and it
makes your hair flat. It’s not
something I’d want to do but I’m
glad someone does.“The Dyson HQ sadly
turned out to be neither
underground, nor
hidden in a volcano”
D
they hit statutory standards. Oh no,
that would be too easy. They do
that, and then they build their own
test rigs to ensure their gizmos can
pass tests they have made up.
So, for instance, a machine was
devised to simulate a 220kg human
treading on the Corrale repeatedly,
in stiletto heels. Just like in real life!
In another top secret lab, robot
hands pulled the straightener
through tresses of scalped human
hair repeatedly, to figure out how aOpinion
MAY 2020 T3 27Duncan Bell is
visiting Dyson
When you visit the lair of Lord Dyson, you
can see why his products are so pricey