Anna G, Alessandro Mendini's woman-shaped corkscrew, a symbol of playful design

“Anna the dancer” is what Chiara Alessi remembers the Anna G corkscrew being called by most people when it was introduced. Anna G was designed by Italian designer Alessandro Mendini in 1994 and was produced by the design company Alessi. The corkscrew is named after designer Anna Gili, then a student of Mendini, and has become an icon of contemporary design. It is therefore not a dancer: “When advertising executive Emanuele Pirella had to think up the promotional image for the Anna G corkscrew,” Alessi said in a story published by the Omero Museum in Ancona, “he imagined it as a Marilyn Monroe with her skirt fluttering and her hands on her dress to hold it down. But many people saw a dancer in it and continue to think that in that retouch the most famous Italian corkscrew, and one of Alessi’s most famous designs, is a dancer. That the corkscrew inherently has anthropomorphic features, with its arms opening and closing, and its head spinning from side to side, is commonplace; Alessandro Mendini, who was a master of that aesthetic of the banal, merely amplifies the effect and completes the depiction. He covers the one leg with an embossed dress, and so the part that sticks out of the corkscrew looks like a foot on its toes: here is the ballerina.”

The design of the Anna G corkscrew is very elegant and minimalist. It echoes the concept of the corkscrew designed by Dominick Rosati in 1930, designed so that opening a bottle of wine would be quick and easy, without having to struggle with the cork. The idea was to place the spiral in the center of the wine cork and rotate the handle. The spiral screws into the cork and raises the two side arms. To uncork the bottle, it is then sufficient to drop the arms back, the corkscrew lifts up taking the cork with it, and the bottle of wine is ready to be served.

The story of the Anna G corkscrew began in 1994, when the Italian design company Alessi commissioned designer Alessandro Mendini to design a new corkscrew. Mendini had worked with Alessi before: the celebrated designer set to work and in a short time created a very innovative corkscrew prototype. Its design was simple, elegant, and functional. The corkscrew was made of chrome-plated zamak, a zinc alloy, and had a thermoplastic resin body, measuring 24 centimeters high and only 7 centimeters thick. The main feature of Anna G is the fact that Mendini took advantage of the naturally anthropomorphic shape of the corkscrew to give it the appearance of a stylized woman, with a smiley face on the handle, a bow to simulate a bob hairstyle, and a fluttering dress on the body. Alberto Alessi, the patron of the Piedmontese house, had noticed the resemblance to Anna Gili and suggested naming the corkscrew after the young designer. “I still keep in my mind, the image of Alessandro Mendini, who with much circumspection along with an enveloping and seductive voice, similar to the hissing of a snake, approached me to tell me about theidea he had had together with Alberto Alessi about the name to give to the corkscrew he designed in 1994, which resembled in its shape the silhouette of a woman,” Anna Gili later recounted on her website (today she is the owner of an established design studio). “Alberto Alessi had observed that the iconic figure resembled my person and, therefore suggested the possibility of calling it Anna Gili. Alessandro, replied that he agreed, except to hear my opinion. As soon as Alessandro Mendini, finished speaking, I thanked him and, I reserved some time to think about it, also because such a request does not happen then every day, and therefore I needed to think about it. Having to give one’s name to a corkscrew was unusual for me. After some time had passed, I told Alessandro Mendini that being a designer myself, I would have preferred that my person and my work not be automatically associated with the Alessi company’s corkscrew. It seemed more interesting to me to leave the name Anna and add only the letter G, as the initial of my surname Gili. It was a veiling, which in my opinion gave an element of mystery to the iconic figure, which he designed.”

Mendini’s tirebouchon immediately became a cult object for many wine enthusiasts and collectors of design objects. It comes in different colors, including red, black, orange, green, blue and white, to suit everyone’s taste, all produced between 1994 and 2001. Then came the edition reminiscent of the colors of the celebrated Proust armchair, one dedicated to Empress Galla Placidia in homage to the mosaics of Ravenna, and a special edition, RED, made for the fight against AIDS, was also produced. It was, however, and intended to be, a playful object, in line with the latest design trends. “We are in the 1990s,” Chiara Alessi explained, "and one of the main phenomena of design is that of the playful: a language is being defined in the overcoming of the functionalism of the fine design of the Italian tradition, and its maxim form follows function, toward the idea that the object should be first and foremost a story, an occasion of communication, as Umberto Eco would have defined it, an alternative representation of the world, therefore form follows fiction. Objects, starting from that era, supported also by the massive use of plastic in household goods, regain a kind of animism, thus fishing in a much older tradition of modern Italian style that Alessandro Mendini looks at with affection and interest. Giving them the form of domestic presences, of real characters in a story, even giving them names, helps to make them new subjects, as possessors of a life of their own, which continues even Disney-like far from our eyes, and at the same time making them appear more familiar to those who will use them."

Corkscrew

orkscrew

And it had taken only two small interventions to bring the object to life: making the cage into a dress, and drawing eyes, mouth and hair on the ring that is turned to make the spiral enter the cork. Thus, Anna G became an iconic and highly useful design object. As mentioned above, today Anna G is available in different versions and can be purchased in various design stores, but it can also be purchased online on specialized sites. Alessi’s official website, for example, offers a wide selection of Anna G corkscrews, including the original model and several color variants. Even on the most common e-commerce platforms you can find the Anna G corkscrew in different variants and at an affordable price. In any case, it is important to buy the Anna G corkscrew only from authorized dealers, to be sure that you are buying an original and quality product.

What is certain is that since 1994 Anna G has entered thousands of homes. And Anna Gili wonders, “Did I contribute, perhaps unwittingly, to what would eventually become this enormously popular character?” If so, “I would be very happy,” the designer concludes. “And it is nice to know that the Anna G. corkscrew can be found in homes all over the world, and has probably opened millions of bottles of wine in the most attractive celebrations.”

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