Ronán O’Grady of Flair Showers – Designing products that help retailers succeed

Flair’s market research shows that bathrooms are expected to last up to 20 years. Ronán O’Grady, Lead Product Designer for Flair Showers’ parent company, Sanbra Ltd, explains how its beautifully designed and expertly engineered shower doors, enclosures and wetrooms are built to last, while remaining simple, safe and quick to install.

Q: How does Flair design its shower enclosures to ensure they stand the test of time in the bathroom?
A: There are many elements that work together to ensure our shower enclosures stand the test of time. At Flair, we utilise a stage gate system in our design and development process. Each phase has a significant impact on the quality and durability of the product.

Our research stage helps us understand the users’ true wants and needs, allowing us to identify the key features to develop and build an overarching specification for each door type. This provides design clarity that directly affects the quality of the end product. In the concept phase we investigate and expand on these ideas, while carefully considering material selection, manufacturing methods and finishing processes, which are critical for longevity.

Our DFMA (design for manufacture and assembly) and prototyping stages make sure everything is easy to assemble for better product reliability in the future and offers an opportunity to modify the design to improve aesthetics, functionality, and test water retention performance.

In the testing phase, each product is carefully tested to ensure it meets the required standards before full-scale manufacturing. High standards are so important when it comes to producing a quality product and this phase allows our team to test our products to the full suite of tests outlined in EN 14428 on a small batch before fully committing to full scale manufacturing. We subject our designs to cycle, impact and water retention testing to ensure that the product is built to last. We normally cycle test our products to 40,000 cycles, double the specified amount in EN 14428.

Q: What installer-friendly innovations has Flair engineered to make sure retailers can guarantee a perfect installation for their customers?
A: Enclosures in our premium Harmony Collections and installer-friendly Flair PRO Collections come with easy-to-follow fitting instructions and video guides are available on our YouTube channel, making the process even simpler. Our shower doors offer generous profile adjustments too, while maintaining a minimalist looking frame, which ensures ease of fitting even with off level walls. Furthermore, we pre-fit our shower door rollers where possible, and our hinged doors 1000mm and under come in one box with the frame fully assembled, reducing the amount of assembly required onsite.

Engineering excellence is demonstrated by our Click Fit and Click Fit PRO assembly systems, revolutionising the way shower doors are fitted. With Click Fit and Click Fit PRO, Flair enclosures are quicker, simpler and safer to install, and installation costs are reduced without compromising on strength or style.

Q: Which design elements elevate the aesthetics, while ensuring the product is functional and easy to maintain?
A: At Flair, we have our own unique design language, which we describe as controlled organic design. It is most evident with our handles in our Harmony Collections, however it is integrated into every element of our products. We can create a visual hierarchy that makes the door intuitive and safe to use, beautiful to observe and from a very practical standpoint, easy to clean and maintain. Our enclosures are free of sharp edges and offer smooth, gentle curvature that is both attractive and interesting visually, that’s also pleasant to touch. This clean minimalist design also reduces areas where dirt can collect.