Dog Napkin Ring in stainless steel.
Design: King Kong, 1994 for Alessi of Italy.
Dimensions: Ø cm 4.2 - h cm 5
King-Kong was the name from 1985 up to 1989, adopted by the architects Stefano Giovannoni and Guido Venturini, creators of an elementary, playful cartoon language which made its mark on design in the early 90s.
What Alberto Alessi has to say about King Kong:
In the late eighties, in his usual discreet manner Alessandro Mendini, an invaluable conduit of new talent, told me of two young architects from Florence. Subsequently, Stefano Giovannoni and Guido Venturini came to see me, very nervous, with a few sketches. They were two rather odd looking guys, and I felt that their playful and elementary poetics, often closely inspired by the formal style of cartoons, was full of potential. I had them shown around the factory and did my best to fill them in about us, our hopes and possibilities. They listened to me very attentively, and the next time they came back with a whole bookcrammed with design notes. Those little King-Kong "men" have turned up on the edging of objects that belong to the most consolidated Alessi tradition, such as our Trays or Baskets. Now, though, they have multiplied and have set out to invade territories familiar (such as the chopping board, napkin holder or photo holder) and unfamiliar (keyring, bookmark, candles). Their apotheosis, though, has to be Girotondo Ring-around-the-rosy Jewellery (1998). To be honest, I think that the King-Kongs, despite their indubitable intuition and great flair, have been lucky too. They were spot on with the "playful style", they understood how important it is to work with emotional codes", but above all the project came at the right time, and its place in the Alessi catalogue hit the spot. With hindsight, I'd say it was a typical case of applying the "child code" to a catalogue like ours, until then dominated by the authority, status and style of great designers' masterpieces: a counterweight to the then emerging talents of Rossi, Graves and Starck.
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