After all, what are shoes, said Will.i.am, if not protective equipment for the feet? We just forgot that this was his original purpose because shoes have become a form of self-expression. You could not, he noted, “go into a mall, restaurant or plane without shoes” any more than you should go into any of these places 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 (or multipurpose) purpose, you win.
Will.i.am spoke via Zoom from his HQ in Los Angeles, a space that contains 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 was in Britain filming “The Voice” (he was a judge on the program for 10 years) and Europe was starting to come into block . “I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to come to America, and even if I could, that I was on a plane,” he said. So, he called his hardware team and told them to get to work.
He has been in and out of technology since he helped found Beats Electronics in 2006. In 2014, he developed a trendy smartwatch called Puls and in 2016 launched trendy headphones that you could wear around your neck like jewelry – Naomi Campbell and Kendall Jenner was the ambassador – but none of the products really took off (no doubt, the entire wearable market is not exactly a rocket). He does not call. He loves research and development.
“I think L means learning, not loss,” he said.
Now, however, he has the power of Honeywell behind him and plans Xupermask-related collaborations with artists and other brands. (He doesn’t name names, although he did talk about how much he loved the North Face-Gucci collaboration.) And he really, really doesn’t think the masks are going to disappear anytime soon. Not if recent history is any indication.
“SARS happened in Japan and Southeast Asia, they overcame and still wear masks,” he said, suggesting that the same would happen in the West. Mainly because the masks also seemed to have helped to limit flu cases. In any case, whatever happens on the ground, he hopes that masks on airplanes will be the new norm. “That’s what I’m hearing,” he said.
He has a feeling.