Is This 1pc 90s Alessi Blue Napkin Holder, European Design Classic In Mint Condition Available?
ISO: a metric for becoming an NHM
Welcome to Is This Available? by Dana and Maria, our weekly blast about something we find on Facebook Marketplace.
Brooklyn , New York
For special occasions my mom often sets the table with napkin-rings shaped like a rose or a shell or something. This is not to suggest that my mom is a Martha Stewart napkin-holder type of mom. If the official NHM (Napkin-holder-mom) scale stretches from Miss Frizzle to Martha Stewart, my mom’s arrow would definitely point toward the Frizz. In considering where I might land on the NHM scale, I am a bit lost. I’m a messy eater, the least germaphobic woman you’ve ever met and I adore snacking in repose. I’m not a diligent napkin-user and thus find myself with little to no use for a napkin ring or a napkin holder in my daily life.
That said, the muted sky blue and simple design of this napkin holder had me wondering if there is room for the sloppy and childless on the NHM scale. The listing’s lede gives me hope: “1pc vintage 90s Alessi napkin or paper/letter holder in the most wonderful light blue color!” You read that right, not just a napkin, but a paper (plentiful)! or a letter (aspirational)!
I did a bit of light googling into this particular napkin holder. It’s created by Alessi, the Italian home designer culture and this particular object is named girotondo which appears to translate to ring around the rosey. My penchant for cuteness strikes again.
Digging into the listing a bit further, things get a little heady. “The cartoon men created by the King-Kong team are a symbol and icon of mirror polished design based on the use of “affective codes.” What even are affective codes you might be asking? Well I started Googling and became further captivated with this stupid napkin holder.
In this 2010 interview with the designer, he unexpectedly blows my mind??
Sure his binaries of maternal and paternal are old fashioned and reductive, but I’m afraid I have opened the door to codes and also feel deeply seen in this napkin holder. I now have a name for the reason I am more drawn to objects with more roundness and softness and mommy-ness rather than pointy, spiky rigid objects. Could this be a precursor to the kiki and bouba phenomena? An Italian psychic vision for a future in which everything is something-coded?
The seller of this Girotondo closes out the description with “the “standing men” have appeared on objects from the farthest corners of Alessi tradition, like trays and baskets, and then they multiplied, invaded and conquered other groups of objects - and not just in the kitchen and at the table”
Frankly, I’ve followed the little sweeties on this bouba-coded napkin holder, way off my NHM scale and am now fully caught in the rapture of affective coding.
Dana’s miss of the week: the maternal code NHM bouba genesis vase
P.S. if anyone out there is taking note I’ve always looooooooved the Alessi 9093 Teakettle…
Yeah so, Maeve has the pillow.
Enter Maeve: I already had planned to head to Greenpoint for a little shopping a couple weeks ago, and couldn't even wait to pursue so I looked at a website ahead of time of one of my favorite shops: Feng Sway. I saw this pillow on their site and knew I had to have it and walked straight in looking for it the next day. I was nervous it would be sold out or that I had made it up in some late night online shopping fever dream, but there it was nestled in a basket with other (less chic) throw pillows. They had a left and right version available, which I loved, and I took him home. He's now a beloved member of the family.
i did not know about kiki and bouba but am now walking around the office pointing at things. that's kiki. thats bouba for sure. ty