There’s an influential idea in design that form arises from function — the best-designed items are distilled down to their most fundamental purpose. Imagine a modernist skyscraper, a Bauhaus chair, a DTC juice machine. At the other end of the spectrum is the ethos of amassing a ton of beautiful, shiny, interesting ideas and throwing them together without streamlining away the weird or discordant bits. For many products, I prefer minimalism; for phone cases, I love the crazy stuff, and I’m not alone — I’ve noticed maximalism gaining ground.
I called my friend Kalli Mathios, a librarian based in New York, who memorably kept her phone in a series of rhinestone-encrusted, bejeweled, and betasseled phone cases in the late 2010s. (She’s since switched to a more work-appropriate lilac silicone case.) I asked why she thought aesthetic phone cases might be coming back. “It feels weird to say we have a limited number of options in front of us, but if you think about it, there’s really only a handful of different phone brands and types,” she says. “There’s only so many parent companies.”
In the face of a homogenous and creatively uninspiring tech landscape, why not get an insane phone case? I’ve collected 12 favorites below, including a faux-toast case molded from real bread and a much-copied mosaic case that is destined to confuse archaeologists thousands of years from now when they unearth artifacts of the 2020s. (If you live in the New York area, I also recommend checking out Cutes House in College Point, Queens — you can decorate your own phone case with pastry bags of acrylic clay and tons of charms, then bake it in a toaster oven afterwards to set it.)
A futuristic, techy-yet-organic, high-shine phone case I learned about from our gift guide for girlfriends.
Flaunt’s cases dare to ask the question: What if the curved edges of an iPhone were square? They come in a bunch of colors and textures, but my favorites are faux tortoiseshell and abalone.
I love this realistic buttered-toast phone case, made from resin and molded from real bread. Because it’s handmade, the seller notes that “the browning and melting of the butter will vary from piece to piece.”
Bailey Hiwaka’s XXL phone cases look like giant gummy bears and can act as a holder or prop up your phone like a stand in either orientation, horizontal or vertical. The standard colors cost around $60 to $80, but there are more expensive styles with skeins of fake spaghetti or fake eyelashes floating in the silicone.
There are many, many dupes out there for Memor’s phone case, but the real deal is best — a customized mosaic of charms pressed in clay. You can choose between themes (like gold-heavy “Byzantine” or a seashell pattern called “Nautilus”) with optional add-ons, like monogramming, astrological symbols, or a ceramic finger hold shaped like a teacup handle. (The brand also makes mosaic Crocs Jibbitz.)
These are the phone cases Mathios bought in the late 2010s, when she was looking for something “very bedazzled, with a bit of a pre-social-media vibe.” (According to its website, LuxAddiction has been making phone cases since 2007, before Instagram existed.) Each gem and charm is hand-glued, and the cases can be customized with your name. “Honestly, they lasted a really long time,” she says. “This company was really good.”
These puffy phone cases come in a wide range of glossy, high-shine colors — I especially love the contrast between the pillow-shaped case and a delicate stitched bow.
Sunny Pig Studio’s phone cases contain real pressed flowers, strawberries, lemon wheels, and a mosaic of dehydrated slices of dragonfruit.
The Strategist is designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read about here. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
