Who doesn't love the thrill of riding in a cool car, windows down, turning heads wherever you go? But for Charlotte Kanters, looking good isn’t enough: cars need to closet you in comfort, improve your everyday life and, most importantly of all, have minimal impact on the environment. And as colour and material design specialist for BMW, Kanters is on a mission to achieve exactly this with BMW’s pioneering Neue Klasse range. “It is really important to us that a car has a long life,” she says from BMW’s headquarters in Munich. “We want to develop materials and colours that you will still like in 20 years, so they have to be timeless and elegant. We want to have things that last and that we can reuse in different ways.”

This circularity is one of the key tenets of the design philosophy behind BMW’s Neue Klasse. A mere 12 months ago this car was just a concept, a vision of what a car of the future could be. And yet, 2025 will see the first model roll off the production line, heralding a new era in car manufacture. These all electric cars are engineered inside and out to provide a more human-centric driving experience that feels effortless.

“A car is not only an object that brings you from A to B. You spend a lot of time in it,” Kanters explains. “Your car is a flexible space where you should always feel at home, so we incorporate inviting surfaces that you want to touch and ‘shytech’, technology that is only visible when you need it. “There are so many interesting material developments going on at the moment,” she adds. “Everyone knows that cars have four wheels, they have a mostly steel body, but it’s often the materials on the inside where the biggest changes will come in future.”

She cites working with textile designers on woven or knitted monomaterials that feel luxurious but can be implemented in a circular system. Seats are made from recycled materials in a process that produces lower CO2 emissions and uses significantly less water than cotton or polyester would require. And there are ongoing explorations with polymer and paint manufacturers to develop light reactive pigments, which make your car glow when you approach at night. Such expertise makes BMW the perfect partner for Vogue’s exciting new design competition, inspired by Neue Klasse.

Future Creators aims to find the next generation of fashion and jewellery talent, and Kanters’s role as one of the three judges – along with Simone Rocha and Vogue editor Julia Hobbs – is one she relishes. “As a design community, it’s extremely important that we show we want to guide those new designers and give them a platform to showcase their work. It’s also inspiring for us to see their values, what direction they are going in and what is important to them. We can learn from them too.”

VOGUE: FORCES FOR CHANGE.

Join BMW is celebrating the people, organisations, and ideas that are pushing for a more progressive future.

Find out more