On Tuesday 8th November, James May’s Man Lab featured an icon of the design world. Unfortunately he pointed out the all the disadvantages of it and then destroyed it to make a common version of the product. Yes – I’m talking about the Alessi Juicy Salif. It may look like a tripod from War of the Worlds, but in fact it’s a lemon squeezer designed by Philippe Starck.
When Alessi first gave Starck the design brief, they asked for a tea tray. But instead, over a meal of squid sprinkled with lemon, Starck drew out probably his most famous product on a napkin stained with a variety of sauces.
Made from cast aluminium and then polished to give the mirror-like finish to it, it looks like something that has been brought back from the future, just not in a Delorean!
Ten years after its release of launch 10,000 were individually numbered and gold plated, but as the regular ones are heading towards £50 then special ones would have special exclusive prices - which begs the question, would you use this special edition to squeeze your lemons or would it be a decorative item?
But is the regular one really designed to be an efficient lemon squeezer? The space between the three legs, could you fit a glass or something to catch your juice in? Or is this lemon squeezer just another iconically designed product that doesn’t want to be in a cupboard collecting dust?
