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Few, if any, names in the designer homewares market have the pull of Alessi. Trays, kettles, coffee plungers, juice squeezers and even cutlery with the Alessi name have attracted leading architects and designers to put their stamp on the Italian company’s products over the decades – Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Rossi, Philippe Starck, Michael Graves and Richard Sapper, to name a few.
Australian designers have also made their indelible mark on Alessi – such as Susan Cohn with her Cohncave bowl, designed in 1992, which features two layers of perforated metal that creates a moray effect. Any groovy architect or creative has this bowl on their dining table.
The Susan Cohn Cohncave bowl for Alessi. Credit: Leonard Joel
For Ross Madden, who established designer furniture business Aero in the mid-1970s and followed that in 1987 with R.G. Madden, a chain of stores across Australia, the name Alessi has been part of his DNA, then and now.
“R.G. Madden was one of the first designer stores to open in Australia, particularly for household items, but I was certainly the first to bring in Alessi,” says Madden, who continues to sell Alessi through the Smith Street Bazaar in Smith Street, Fitzroy.
Madden’s display case within the vintage furniture and lighting store is brimming with Alessi products from the 1970s to the early noughties. Each one includes the name of the designer, the date it was produced and the price tag – starting at less than $100 and heading north to around $500.
The Michael Graves French presser, a coffee plunger with two coffee cups, set within fine silver baskets, retails for $448, while the “Hands Around the World Tray”, selling through Madden for $139, spawned a range of products that featured figures with outstretched arms – such as a dog bowl for one’s pampered pooch.
The Alessi Juicy Salif. Credit: Leonard Joel
Other items on display include Richard Sapper’s “Todo”, a sculptural cheese and nutmeg grinder designed in 2004 for Alessi, that could easily be mistaken for an Olympic torch. Many items can still be purchased as new, while others can be bought on the secondary market through auction houses such as Leonard Joel.
Rebecca Stormont, modern design specialist at Leonard Joel, has sold a few Cohncave bowls for about $300.