The iconic Alessi Anna G. corkscrew, designed by Alessandro Mendini, celebrates its 20th anniversary with a special edition corkscrew, designed to further celebrate the beginning of a collaboration that has lasted 2 decades.
Anna G. has been one of Alessi’s most celebrated and iconic products in recent decades, and Mendini has dressed her up for her 20th birthday – emphasizing her status as a tabletop sculpture wearing a tribal dance mask, — “perhaps suited to the forests and legends of Umbria, perhaps suited to the theatrical exploits of the Bauhaus,” he explained. When not adorning the corkscrew, the mask is a small work of art to hang on the wall or to display on a surface.
As Alberto Alessi recalls: “That [original] collaboration was truly exceptional. For the first time in history, an Italian design factory had agreed to cooperate with a multinational company on a mass-produced consumer item.”
Since its introduction, the Anna G. corkscrew has enjoyed widespread exposure, becoming a symbiotic household icon. And now, to mark the event, Mendini created a new specially-designed performance for the occasion.
The moniker of the corkscrew comes from the name a real person, Anna Gili, a designer from Umbria,
who designs animals. It was Alberto Alessi who proposed the name, finding similarities between the image of the corkscrew and that of the real-like Anna – the hair, long neck, daze, and even dance movements.
The incredible success of Anna G., with 1.5 million pieces sold, has made it a bestseller that over the years has given rise to a small family of objects, including a pepper mill, bottle stoppers, grater, candlestick and a vase, to name a few.
With a vast product line that includes everything from an iconic, whistling teakettle to a designer fly swatter, the Alessi company, founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi, has long been at the forefront of innovative and inspired product design. The company has created a dynasty out of not only offering products geared towards the mainstream – serving trays and everyday cutlery among them – but by also creating some of the most celebrated cult objects of our time. Alessi has been able to develop a policy of design excellence which has made it one of the leading internationally renowned Italian Design Factories. It has reconciled its typically industrial needs with its tendency to consider itself as a ‘research laboratory in the field of the applied arts’.
To learn more about the limited edition Anna G. Corkscrew and the entire collection of Alessi products, visit Alessi.com.
For more information, visit Alessi.
