The weirdly mid details of the Jaguar brand relaunch

I have an eye for detail and it's served me well as much as it's got me in to trouble. Because when I notice something, I tend to point it out.

Some people like it. I help them see things they otherwise wouldn't have. This was handy, for example, when I worked in perceived quality in the automotive industry.

And some people hate it. I make them see things they'd rather not, or rather I didn't. Having a carefully-constructed narrative disrupted can, I imagine, be dispiriting.

And so we come to the endlessly-discussed and dissected Jaguar launch. Not for now another waltz around the typography, or the identity politics, or whether Jaguar really has blown up its history or not.

No, I want to talk about the details, and what they say about a brand that desperately wants to up is position in the market and, as a consequence, up its pricing, too.

Let's start with the launch video.

The first thing I noticed in this, the opening scene, was the clothing. I couldn't escape the way the stitches pull at the pink fabric over the model's breasts, or how the shoulder pad is clearly visible under the red sweater, or the lumpy stuffing and indifferent construction of the yellow... life preserver?

This didn't look like luxury. This looked like a student's first show. Or, perhaps, the kind of toiles you might make to test out the concepts for a collection, but would never, ever see the light of day.

I called a friend of mine, a couturier who trained under Saint Laurent (the man), and worked at Dior (the house). His craftsmanship is sublime, and so I asked him about the clothes in the video which he'd not seen nor heard about. I asked him about what luxury looks like in his world:

Refinement is in the finishing of exquisite fabrics and the details show the craftsmanship.

So what do these clothes look like to him?

This is a brand that's trying to sell cutesy toys or bubblegum lipstick.

So would a true consumer of luxury pick up on these misshapen details that I see?

Oh yah...

Interestingly, he said the car looks like:

Porn.

Something feels off, too, about seeing the new dawn of Jaguar sat in the lobby of an office block, screened off by cheap partitions, looking like something you might find in the back halls of the Paris motor show or, heaven forbid, Britain's unremittingly grim National Exhibition Centre.

Then there's the Jaguar concept cars themselves, or at least the models that are doing duty as "cars".

Far from driving prototypes, these will be combinations of fibreglass, putty, foam and hope, all held together with epoxy and a little showbiz magic.

And yet they're the closest thing we have to the cars, the real things not being on the road until some time in 2026. So when we see these "cars" in operation, what can we really see?

What about a crooked "G" in the grille?

Or here's the door that covers the totem storage area opening. Watch carefully and you'll see it wobble as it opens:

Now take a look at the Leaper below the door, lacking any kind of clarity, looking gummed up and grimy.

What about the boot lid that wibbles as it closes? There's a small-but-unmistakable movement that suggests a mechanism not quite tuned for the role it has to play.

Lastly, let's look at where the car sits.

In their martian landscape, these CAD renders seem somehow to float, their shadows not quite grounding them. And I can't quite tell whether the light sources for each car are quite the same.

Something feels off.

Something feels off, too, about seeing the new dawn of Jaguar sat in the lobby of an office block, screened off by cheap partitions, looking like something you might find in the back halls of the Paris motor show or, heaven forbid, Britain's unremittingly grim National Exhibition Centre.

And yes, right there next to Professor Gerry McGovern OBE Chief Creative Officer – as he presents his do-or-die vision for Jaguar in Miami – is the extension cord that presumably is keeping the whole thing alive.

Oh, and a pile of random stuff in the corner.

Call me churlish. Call me cruel.

I'm entirely sure neither the customers – nor Gerry – will care.

But what the customers will care about is what they're buying into.

A successful luxury brand is about both the sparkle and the substance.

It's about creating a dreamworld in to which a customer can insert themselves, and then handing them a talisman to take home.

It's about story and execution, and – in the world of luxury – fanatical attention to detail in each.

So what does it say when you can't get your G straight, your stitches sitting nicely, or your lights shining rightly?

What are your customers to think when your doors wobble, and your vision's oh-so muddled?

Most people won't notice the individual details but they'll perceive the whole to which they contribute.

And I'm not sure the details of this particular story quite add up.