Sky unveil 4 "designer" boxes

Good news for the fashion-conscious. No longer does the Sky box under your TV have to be a boring black box – instead it can be, umm, covered in pictures of Minnie Mouse.

Sky have employed the skills of fashion designers Roland Mouret and Giles Deacon, “style icon” Sophie Dahl and “men’s fashion rising star” Kit Neale to come up with the limited edition designs.

As you can see from the picture – the designs are fairly diverse, and they’ve even made unique remotes too.

The boxes are all reskinned versions of Sky’s latest box – containing 2TB of storage (for 350 hours of HD recording), and also wifi, meaning for the first time you can link up your Sky box to the internet without trailing a long wire from your router. So that’s great… but technology isn’t what it’s all about! These new boxes are all about fashion!

According to the press release, the designs are all deeply personal: “Roland and Sophie’s designs both reflect the passion they love in their favourite shows – with Sophie’s design inspired by her love of romance, and Roland taking gritty contemporary drama as his muse. Kit has captured his love for the great outdoors taking creative inspiration from nature documentaries, whilst Giles focuses on animation with a fun and contemporary design inspired by Disney’s style icon Minnie Mouse. “

If you want to get your hands on one, the boxes will set existing Sky customers back at least £149, but new customers can get one for only £49 if they take the Sky Entertainment Extra+ subscription.

And amusingly the release also contains some cringeworthy quotes from the designers, in which they awkwardly name-drop specific Sky programmes and services. Here they are in full:

Roland Mouret
“I love the idea of magic. I love how a woman can put on a dress and transform herself into something completely new. For me, the Sky box has the same magical quality, the ability to take us out of our world and transport us to somewhere dangerous and exciting. When I look at the contemporary dramas that people love today like Dracula or Hannibal on Sky Living, I see passion cutting through the elegance and the glamour of those worlds. My design features colourful splashes of passion cutting through a calm sea of orchids. Some people will look and see love, some people will look and see blood. It’s up to you.”

Giles Deacon
“Minnie Mouse and I are old pals now. I designed a dress inspired by Minnie Mouse for Fashion Week last year and it’s great to work with such a style icon once again. Minnie encompasses all things fun. She’s stylish, independent, spirited and everyone adores her. I absolutely love Disney animations so when I decided to design my Sky box in celebration of the Disney classics on Sky Movies Disney, I was inspired to focus my creation on Minnie.”

Sophie Dahl
“I started modeling as a teenager during a time where fashion was irreverent and full of magic. I love the theatre of fashion, a theatre that can belie the work that goes behind it. I’m a big fan of old fashion illustrations and textile design from the twenties and thirties, Cecil Beaton and Chanel in particular. It was their fashion illustrations that were the inspiration for my Sky box: the rose, something sweet and playful that conjures romance.”

Kit Neale
“I’m a real city boy, born and bred. I love city life, especially London but I don’t get to see the countryside very often. I think that’s why I’m so fascinated by nature and the outdoors. When I watch a documentary on nature, like those ones you see with David Attenborough on Sky 1 and Sky 3D, I’m literally blown away by what I see. I’m really pleased with how well my ‘Rockney Lobster’ design has gone down in the fashion world so it seems to be the perfect design to adapt for my Sky box. Nature is cool, it’s bizarre and it’s colourful. Hopefully, that comes across in my design.”

So there you have it. Personally I’m a bit disappointed that only living celebrities were employed – if only Sky had thought to use one of their Psychic TV channels to see what the ghosts of Joe Strummer and Bill Hicks would have come up with for their designs.