The Dutch designer Marcel Wanders has teamed up with Italian design brand Alessi to create a colourful and quirky collection of tableware and kitchen products. The ‘Alessi Circus’ collection consists of 29 products including five limited-edition pieces.
The collection features a colourful range of tableware items: placemats, bowls, round trays, ice bucket, bottle stands, wine cooler, salad bowls, mugs, small bowls and containers. The series is defined by multi-coloured circles, stripes, diamonds and segments all finished in white, red, black and gold geometric patterns evoking the ambiance and aesthetic of the circus.
The five limited-edition Officina Alessi figures each represent an important circus character – the jester, the strongman, the ballerina, the ringleader and the candyman. The fantasy world of Wanders combined with Alessi’s high manufacturing quality and expertise, has resulted in this precious collection of table sculptures – each made from steel plate, which can be collected and handed down from generation to generation.
The Strongman, Marcello, is a nutcracker shaped like a strongman performing a weight-lifting feat on top of a small podium. Turning his dumbbells forced his boots down onto the nut, which sits in a dip on the podium.
A corkscrew called The Jester, Gilberto, also sits on a podium, which hides the screw function. Once wound into a cork, the jester’s body expands to remove it from the bottle. His hat acts as a handle.
The Ballerina, Valentina, is a baby elephant that pirouettes on a golden ball on top of a music box that plays the classic circus tune The March of the Gladiators by Julius Fucík. A silver mouse is added as her companion in the act.
A dinner bell has been imagined as The Ringleader, Massimo, on a wheeled cart with a silvery monkey at the front and a red-caped top-hatted figure at the back.
A tall sweet dispenser called The Candyman, Alberto, is shaped like the face of a clown with an over-sized top hat. Sweets are dispensed from his tongue.
Steel and china placements, bowls, trays, ice buckets, wine coolers, mugs, salad bowls and containers are decorated with circus-themed patterns in yellow, red, black, white, gold and silver. Among the available patterns are tessellating triangles and diamonds that emulate circus tents and costumes, as well as spots and stripes. Glass storage jars are decorated with horses around the sides and are topped with peaked lids to resemble a merry-go-round.
Wanders says, “The circus is larger than life. The pageantry and astonishment from what you see, hear and feel never leaves you. That one-of-a-kind magical feeling is now celebrated through this innovative collection.”
