Anna G. Corkscrew — Alessi/Alessandro Mendini, 1994. First Year of Production.

Even in the most ordinary of objects — like a corkscrew — we can see design doesn’t just reflect the times. Sometimes it responds to them with uncanny precision. Alessi is a good example of this and how it re-invented itself through simple objects like corkscrews and ice cream scoops.

The early 1990s were difficult times in Europe. Recession had bitten deep into consumer confidence and the design industry was searching for new directions. Alberto Alessi’s response was to look at the small everyday designs we live with in our homes, and how people actually live with these objects. This closer look led to a series of designs that exploited what he found we were attached to in our homes.

This ‘anthropological gaze’ had been quietly influencing design thinking for years. Studying not just what people buy, but why. What attachments form, and how we bond with objects that have presence. Personality.

Mendini, who designed this corkscrew, understood this instinctively and Anna G. was created. Named after a real woman, modelled on her likeness — she is not merely a corkscrew. She is a character. She performs every time she is used: arms rising and falling, head turning, the cork yielding in a small domestic ritual. Mendini himself described it: a ballerina. The wine-opening as ballet.

This is design operating at the borderline Alberto Alessi always sought — the edge between function and emotion, utility and attachment. In uncertain times, objects that carry personality become stabilising forces in the home. Not passive tools but social actors. Anna G. brings someone to the table.

This example dates from 1994 — the first year of production — in an early colourway that shifts between burgundy and deep plum depending on the light — a quality of the original resin rather than a photographic quirk that distinguishes it from the ubiquitous later editions. It is not a reissue. It is the moment itself, made physical.

Stands 24cm high