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| Alessi: Gaienmae | |||
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According to the Alessi website, the chain of shops "considers itself more a research laboratory in the field of applied arts than an industry in the conventional sense." Quite a way to describe selling designer kitchen equipment!
The family business was founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi, a master lathe-turner from a village in the foothills of the Italian Alps. Since then, Alessi has produced objects by some 200 designers, and has shops everywhere from Andorra to Venezuela. Still, if you have ever been puzzled as to why anyone would fork out piles of yen for simple tableware, perhaps you should wander down to the Alessi flagship store in Gaienmae and find out. On the other hand, you may already be a confirmed design freak, and the shop's 10,000-yen designer dog bowl is the only thing missing from your ergonomically perfect life. This, the biggest Alessi shop in Tokyo, is divided into three levels - plastic stuff on the top floor, metallic on the middle and new on the ground floor. Actually, it's not unlike the (sadly now defunct) Shibuya 100 yen shop. With a few more 0's, naturally. Some of the products are genuinely beautiful, and the shop itself is immaculate. Prices range from millions of yen for silver tea and coffee-ware to a more affordable 1100 yen for the must-have Alessi condom case. "Aless is more", as the company's slogan says. by Tony McNicol |
Alessi
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