Call me chic

Cellphones are the new couture.

The clumsy brick phones of two decades ago were merely utilitarian ; the very act of talking on the phone while driving or walking around exuded cool. But as the cellphone market has exploded -- from 340,000 subscribers in 1985 to 220 million today -- the act of calling has lost its intrinsic decadence.

Today, it's the phone that speaks volumes about the person carrying it. Prada and LG Electronics Inc. just teamed up to produce a sleek black touchscreen phone, following in the high-heeled footsteps of Dolce & Gabbana, which attached its iconic logo to a gold Motorola Razr phone, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., which unveiled a Versace phone last summer. Both clothing designer Diane von Furstenberg and streetwear designer Lifted Research Group worked with T-Mobile USA Inc. in the fall to create different limited edition Sidekick phones.

While handset makers have always paid attention to style, consumer tastes are transforming electronics companies used to competing based on technology into fashion houses. As recently as five years ago, cellphones "were just being sold and positioned as a phone," said Matt Lewis , a director at research firm ARCchart. "The Razr was never sold as a phone; the [LG] Chocolate was never sold as a phone -- they were sold as something sexy."

Lewis forecasts that the "fashion phone" market, in which form is the defining choice, will grow to 23 million phones in 2010, and surveys show that handsets, rather than service, are beginning to drive sales and consumer choices. The phone you buy may already say more about you than you realize: A survey commissioned by Cingular Wireless LLC last month about dating habits and cellphones found that 6 percent of adults judged their dates, at least in part, by the phones they carried.

A J.D. Power and Associates study last fall found that 19 percent of customers cited the brand or type of handset as an important factor when selecting a cellphone provider in 2006, 8 percent more than said handset choice was a key factor two years earlier. At the same time, the study found that the wireless carrier's brand has decreased in importance.

And for the sixth year in a row, CTIA-the Wireless Association will hold a fashion show at its annual tradeshow next month, with models holding ever-thinner electronic devices.

The mystique of just owning a mobile phone has dissolved, and handset makers and cellular providers have had to rethink their industry's business model, going beyond the boxy candy bar phones and functional silver clamshell flips to create thin "it" handsets in hot pink and humanitarian red to drive sales and profits.

When the Motorola Razr V3 was introduced in 2004, it was an industry phenomenon. People spent hundreds of dollars on the phone that was functionally just like many other, cheaper phones on the rack.

The Razr was not significantly more functional than other phones offered at the same time, "but it was super thin and very fashionable," said Avi Greengart , a principal analyst at Current Analysis Inc. "That proved the concept that consumers were willing to pay more for sexier devices."

But like any good fashion idea, what starts on the runway eventually shows up on the rack. Today's cellphone offerings include ever-thinner flip, slider, and even twist phones in the mold of the Razr. Motorola's new line -- including the Pebl, the Slvr, and the Krzr -- all follow in the Razr's slim shadow. Meanwhile, with 50 million Razrs sold worldwide, prices have plummeted from hundreds of dollars to $29.99 with a two-year contract and the phone has lost some of its cool.

"Is the Razr a nice phone? Yes. Is it a cool phone? No," wrote Uzoma Anumudu , a student at the University of Pennsylvania, in an e-mail. Anumudu is one of the 50 members of an anti-Razr group on the social-networking website Facebook.com. "They've become so common that when I see one, I get irked rather than pleasantly surprised."

Motorola's fortunes have followed the Razr's.

Last quarter, the company reported that sales increased 17 percent compared with the same quarter last year, but profit declined by nearly half, and the company said it would lay off 3,500 workers. Lewis cited the disappointing quarter as an example of what happens when trends become the mainstream, meaning fat profit margins slim down.

"That's the big challenge we've identified with the manufacturers, " Lewis said. "Once you get into a paradigm where the majority of customers are going into stores and buying handsets based on how it looks, you are basically a fashion company -- and if you don't understand that industry you are going to fail."

That's something most handset makers are acutely aware of: The days of cellphone makers working as engineering operations in which designers would be asked to slap a shell on a circuit board are over.

Nokia employs ethnographers and design teams; some employees just travel all over the world watching how people interact with objects, according to spokesman Keith Nowak . Motorola has a "colors, materials, finishes, trends forecasting team," a materials sciences team, and a human factors team that studies the ergonomics of interacting with a device, according to Jim Wicks , vice president and director of Consumer Experience Design.

The phone is now a mainstream fashion device, a status symbol, and the most personal accessory. Hundreds of people have joined groups like "Club RAZR" or "all for an iPhone, say I" on social-networking site Facebook.com.

"Wireless is very personal -- when you dial a landline phone you're dialing a building -- it could be a home or a business. But on wireless, you're dialing the person," said Brenda Raney , a spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless Inc. "And if you're dialing a person, that person wants a lot more control over how they are reflected, so the handset becomes an extension of that person and that personality."

Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.