IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ROLLS-ROYCE
THE GLOSS took a trip to the home of Rolls-Royce to find it’s all in the details …
On a sunny day in May, we flew through Platinum Services from Dublin airport – what better way to start a journey to the iconic Rolls-Royce factory in Goodwood, in West Sussex, its home for over 20 years. The global headquarters is a state-of-the-art house of luxury that blends architectural elegance with sustainable design. And it’s where every vehicle is meticulously crafted by hand.
It’s in these details that make the legendary Rolls-Royce so much more than a car. For starters, there are some 44,000 colour combinations to choose from; you can even have their bespoke department create an entirely unique shade and name it after yourself. Another meticulous detail: Rolls-Royce is famous for its custom Starlight Headliners, specific star constellations that are entirely unique to the owner. Choose a significant date in your life, and the craftspeople at Rolls-Royce will marry their skills to create and install this extraordinary feature directly into the leather lining of the ceiling.
To celebrate 100 years of the Rolls-Royce Phantom in 2025, the company introduced three extraordinary artisanal techniques. Using 3D marquetry, pieces of wood are angled at different depths to create an intricate, tactile mosaic. This allows the monochrome Blackwood, the brand’s veneer, to catch light and reveal hidden details from every angle. Rolls-Royce, which is owned by the BMW Group, employs highly skilled female artisans at its Goodwood factory to create bespoke marquetry. These craftswomen spend hundreds of hours selecting, shaping and placing wafer-thin wood veneers to build incredibly detailed custom interior designs for clients.
Other unique techniques include 3D ink layering, a multi-layered ink process that creates intricate fine textures – such as geographical maps, winding roads and floral landscapes – seamlessly embedded into the wood grain. And you can even festoon the interior with 24-carat gold leafing, hand-laid directly onto the wood.
Of course, the best-known detail is the iconic ornament of Rolls-Royce cars: a silver woman with outstretched wings known as the Spirit of Ecstasy, designed by sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes in 1911. She has long been a symbol of luxury and elegance. In 2016, Rolls-Royce launched the Black Badge to cater to a new, younger generation of ultra-luxury clients – now equally recognisable as a mark of excellence. www.rolls-roycemotorcars.com
