Alessi’s red, black and yellow MP0210 pepper mill in stained beechwood is not your average kitchen gadget. Created by renowned Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass, and grounded in the colorful, loopy Memphis style of the 1980s and early ’90s, it’s both table accessory and art piece.
Design trends have started their turn toward ’80s postmodernism — and Memphis pieces are gaining attention from designers and at auction houses. Which is why adding a Sottsass metal basket or that bright pepper mill seems right, and right now.
Sottsass founded the Memphis Group in Milan more than three decades ago as a direct response to rigid intellectualism. The collaborative, which included Alessandro Mendini, Aldo Cibic and Michael Graves, churned out brightly hued furniture and design objects that borrowed from art deco and pop art movements. One journalist described the short-lived style as “a shotgun wedding behind Bauhaus and Fisher Price.” We like to retrospectively refer to Memphis as “postmodernism by way of ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse.’ “
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Though the movement fizzled out in the ’90s, contemporary, slightly reined-in spins on Memphis are cropping up in new furniture and fashions — so if you’re ready to pepper some ’80s style into your life, Alessi’s authentic offerings are an easy way to snap up this bit of design history. (Find both at allmodern.com.)