To ponder Vertu’s ruby bearings and laser-cut ceramic keys is to imagine Thorstein Veblen, the Norwegian-American sociologist and economist, thrashing about in his grave. In his 1899 book, “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” he coined the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe how people, rich or poor, acquire cool stuff to impress and to establish a pecking order. To this guy, even silver flatware seemed like wretched excess. Veblen would surely have seen Vertu as too-too.

Image For Nokia, Frank Nuovo oversaw cellphone design for the mass market. For Vertu, he creates diamond-studded and other phones with high bling factors. Credit... Monica Almeida/The New York Times

One tech blog could have been channeling Veblen when it declared: “Overkill, thy name is Vertu.” But Mr. Nuovo, an amiable Californian who lives in Bel Air and tends to wear black blazers over black T-shirts, rejects that critique. Beautiful objects are desirable, he says. And as objects go, the cellphone is increasingly more ubiquitous than those old lions of luxury, fancy pens and wristwatches.

Vertu won’t release sales figures, but Mr. Nuovo says the company — which has more than 80 boutiques in cities like Tokyo, Dubai, Milan, Las Vegas and London and is opening one on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills in May — is plenty profitable, even in these tight times.

“The watch is disappearing. And everybody in the world is walking around with these,” he says on a recent afternoon, spreading an assortment of cellphones — all of them Nokias or Vertus of his own making — on a table at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., where he was once a student.

If it is politically incorrect to have a finely constructed phone, Mr. Nuovo asks, “does that mean we are forever banished to bits of plastic?”

Not if he has anything to say about it. And this is the foundation of his happiness today: he has everything to say about Vertu. As the company’s creative director and principal designer, he can execute on a single vision — his own.

“I made it very clear when I hired for this,” Mr. Nuovo says, recalling how he assembled his team. “I said: ‘You know what, this is going to be a dictatorship creatively. You can all contribute. But I’m not holding back.’” Vertu, based in Hampshire, England, has 600 employees.