Before my mid-20s, I believed the sign of wealth and success was a Deadly Ponies handbag. When I could spend that money on a bag and not rent, I thought, I would have made it.
As soon as I made it past 25, I saw the light. The measure of success isn't affording an expensive handbag - it's owning a cordless stick Dyson vacuum cleaner, touted on Instagram by influencers showing off the breeze-free way you can clean your floors.
Without bragging too much, I was lucky enough to get my hands on the new Dyson V11 Outsize, released in retail stores around the country on Thursday. I, of course, shared it on Instagram, and was soon flooded with messages from friends.
"I am so jealous, holy god," wrote one friend.
"This is it. You've made it," wrote another.
But Senior Communications Manager for Dyson ANZ Tom Cherrill laughs when I ask how it feels being the current brand du jour, over similarly priced competitors like Miele and Tineco.
"It's really something we've heard from people, that the vacuum is no longer something to lock away," he tells Newshub. "It's become something of a status symbol."
That's an understatement.
This year the brand is celebrating 10 years of cordless stick vacuums with their new releases: the Dyson V11 Outsize and the Dyson V11 Absolute Extra.
It's the Outsize that will most appeal to Kiwi consumers, as it's a reengineered model made for residents of larger homes who still want to run a stick vac around the house.
The tiny 2009 DC26 vacuum cleaner, which could fit in the palm of your hand, was a response to small homes of the Japanese market, and the Cinetic Big Ball from 2015 targeted oversized US homes. But the new Outsize and Absolute Extra are hoped to perfectly fit the mid-size homes of the Kiwi market - both apartments and townhouses alike.
"Following extensive research in the New Zealand market, we found people with larger homes required a machine that could offer deep cleaning capability, covering larger surface areas, complete with increased runtime and larger bins," says John Churchill, VP of Floorcare at Dyson.
If you're constantly emptying the bin on your current vacuum you'd be over the moon with the Outsize's, which is 150 percent bigger, with a 25 percent bigger cleaner head. Simply put, it's the biggest beast of the convenient stick model.
Each vacuum comes with 60 minutes of battery power, which you can keep track of using the handle's handy screen. But if it takes you more than an hour to vacuum, you can buy a separate click-in battery with an extra 60 minutes.
Design lead Joshua Mutlow tells Newshub the new models' features were developed as Dyson is "in the business of solving problems other people ignore".
He says we would laugh if we saw the "lengths we go to" when testing the capabilities of each vacuum.
"It's relentless, obsessive testing," he says.
Mutlow reveals that the mechanism to empty the Outsize's filter has been tested over 3000 times, while a machine that articulates the vacuum back and forth covers a distance of around 1000km. The motor goes through 7000 hours of testing.
"And that's before we even get on to the more abusive stuff," he enthuses.
"We test banging it into furniture, and dropping it from a metre and half's height... stuff people probably won't do with their home vacuum. We call that the Dyson difference."
And finally, for germaphobes - many of us in these uncertain times - the filtration system is next level.
"In a regular vacuum air comes out dirtier than the air in the room," says Mutlow. "[In this Dyson] the air goes through a six stage filtration process which captures 99.97 percent of particles as small as 0.3 microns."
After asking what those small particles are, I almost wish I hadn't
"Ah, well, that's actually the fecal matter of the dust mites which can trigger allergies in a lot of people."
Cute!
All that must come with a catch and for many it will be the price. The Outsize isn't cheap - it starts at $1399.
But if you're looking for this year's status symbol to show off on Instagram, it'll be worth every cent.
