Rolls created new paint process for this one car
Comes with bespoke fragrance and its own dress
Rolls-Royce says that the Phantom Syntopia is the most technically complex bespoke Phantom it has ever built. With the luxury automaker doing more custom work than ever before, that’s really saying something.
This one-off Rolls-Royce Phantom was created for its owner with help from boundary-pushing fashion designer Iris van Herpen. It has three-dimensional textile sculpturing, a weaving water starlight headliner, and the car has its own scent and even its own clothing.
Even the paint is a one-off. Called Liquid Noir, it is iridescent in the sun but shows purple, blue, magenta, and gold depending on the angle. Rolls created the finish by adding a mirror-like pigment over its darkest solid black paint. The shimmer comes from a new technique for applying the clearcoat. Just discovering the technique took 3,000 hours of testing and validation, before painting the car.
Open the doors and the Weaving Water Starlight Headliner jumps out. It uses a single sheet of leather that was picked out of more than 1,000 hides. A woven fabric underneath is revealed through precise cuts giving it a 3D appearance. There are 162 petals made of glass organza, and 187 of the 995 fiber optic stars were placed by hand. The headliner took 700 hours of work to complete.
The front seats are finished in a grey leather but the rears are finished in a silk blend fabric with a distinctive pattern. The two materials were chosen to call back to the era when the driver sat outside on hard-wearing leather and the passengers were covered and cosseted.
Syntopia’s own scent was created by an expert perfumer, in consultation with the car’s buyer. The base scent is cedarwood, but it includes iris, leather, rose, and lemon. Unlike traditional scent dispensers, this one is housed within the headrests. Developing the tech took more than two years.
Lastly that one-off garment. Van Herpen designed a dress that echoes the Weaving Water theme of the car. It is also finished with glass organza petals that are laser-cut and hand stitched. The dress will take six months to make.
Rolls didn’t say how much this one-off cost. Or who the owner will be. We’re sure they’ll show it off at some red-carpet event as quickly as possible. After all, what’s the point of having this much exclusivity if you don’t show it off?
