The Syntopia is the brand’s “most technically complex” bespoke luxury saloon to date.
by Richard Ng / March 21, 2023
Photo: Rolls-Royce
The world of luxury cars once again meets the world of haute couture with the Rolls-Royce Phantom Syntopia, an endeavour equally luxurious and labourious, seeing as how it took the team in Goodwood a full four years to complete.
With the paint work alone needing months of work, it is little wonder that the collaboration with Dutch high fashion designer Iris van Herpen was described by the brand as the “most technically complex commission ever undertaken by the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collective”.
Its name is the Phantom Syntopia, a reference to van Herpen’s nature-inspired 2018 collection.
Almost every detail on the extended wheelbase Rolls-Royce Phantom is bespoke. We’ll start off with the custom paint job – a one-off livery titled Liquid Noir that gives off purple, blue, magenta and gold on a canvas of solid black when viewed under sunlight at just the right angles.
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Inspired by the flow of water
Its classy, subtle shimmer took all of several months to create from scratch, which included over 3,000 hours spent on testing and validation alone.
So too the illuminated Starlight headliner inspired by the flow of water, which took over 700 hours of collective work to bring together.
According to Rolls-Royce, the ‘Weaving Water’ headliner comes studded with 162 delicate glass organza petals, hand-applied by van Herpen’s artisans in collaboration with the Goodwood team on a single sheet of flawless leather – the only one to make the cut after a selection process that involved more than a thousand hides.
A further 187 sparkling fiber-optic ‘stars’ were also painstakingly placed individually by hand, earning the headliner’s status as “the most technically challenging version” of a signature Rolls-Royce design feature.
A special scent for the car
Completing the sensory experience and cementing the Syntopia as a true innovation is Rolls-Royce’s bespoke scent-releasing mechanism hidden within the car’s headrests – a first for the brand.
Naturally, they’re emitting a scent that is itself specially designed for this collaboration by an expert perfumer, now “affectionately known as ‘the Nose of the Bespoke collective’”.
According to the brand, the blend they came up with is anchored on cedarwood, with notes of leather, a bouquet of Patagonian roses and a mild lemon.
The Dutch designer herself is contributing a one-off garment for the private clients behind this commission, echoing the water-themed aesthetics of the car.
Says Torsten Muller-Otvos, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, on the collaboration: “Phantom Syntopia is the most ambitious, singular and highly Bespoke Phantom we have ever created, and a clear statement of Rolls-Royce’s standing as a true luxury house.”
“Building on two decades of joint undertakings with the world’s most celebrated design houses, artists, horologists and jewellers, Phantom Syntopia secures Phantom’s standing as the ultimate blank canvas for Bespoke personalisation,” he concludes.
