Hasta La Ideas

The Alessi booth is always a welcome sight at any given design show or exhibition, for both the fun products on display and the friendly folks behind the brand. We caught up with President Alessio Alessi on multiple occasions last year: first in Miami (along with his son Giovanni) and at last year’s Housewares Show a few months later.

This time around, we went for a good ol’ fashioned sit-down interview with Alessio at McCormick Place, where he gladly explained their latest collection.

Core77: Hi Alessio. How’s it going?

Alessio Alessi: It’s good, thank you.

How long are you here?

But it is very interesting for me, because we just had a long period of different exhibitions in Europe, starting in January, in Paris, then Milan and in Frankfurt. And now this one in the U.S. is very important for me, to see the difference in the kind of exhibitions.

“Mu” silverware by 2013 Pritzker Prize-winning architect Toyo Ito – the hexagonal handles refer to Ito design for the Museum of Architecture, while the spoon refers to a ginkgo leaf

How does this [the Housewares Show] compare to, say, Ambiente in Frankfurt?

It’s quite different, yes. There are a lot more typologies shown at Ambiente than here. Here it seems more specialized in kitchen.

So what does Alessi have in store for us this year?

We are launching a line of small furniture, and this is a project? for the future also, to … this line of furniture [that we are .

We are starting a new project, and we hope to present it [at] the next Salone de Mobile in Italy, but not for this year—in 2014.

You have to keep in mind that when we realize a new idea from the design, it takes a long time to become a reality of the object—an average of two years. At this moment, we have selected the original designs and we are working on how to produce it.

More on the “Joy N.1” bowl below…

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