Excellence, innovation, craftsmanship, and an unwavering desire to challenge expectations.
Trending is our new religion. Not that anyone should act surprised. The desire for understanding amidst an unprecedented explosion of new information is natural. It’s what separates us from everything else with a metabolism. For a species supposedly#doomed to forget the lessons of history, there’s also a comfort in systematically mining the past and present for a hazy peek at the future. It’s proof to ourselves that we’re finally paying attention.
Some of it has tangible value for sure, but just how much of our faith should we place in the hands of the hive mind? It’s a question we circled often while honing the second annual edition of the GPI00 — our own salute to products that embody “excellence, innovation, craftsmanship, and an unwavering desire to challenge expectations.”
Reinforcing the “smart” and “crowd-funded” narratives saturating the headlines today would have been easy. If you browse through this year’s winners, though, we hope you’ll walk away with a different point of view on the world of gear in 2014. Some of our picks stubbornly eschew progress out of homage for the past. Others brashly dismiss what’s established or venerated in pursuit of something bigger. What unites them both is an understanding that all great ideas deserve to be pursued to their full potential, regardless of whether they align with the whims of the many. It’s the difference between creating movements and following them.