I Balocchi, Fantini's icon
“Born by chance, the Balocchi designed in the 70s by Davide Mercatali and Paolo Pedrizzetti, are the watershed that highlighted Fantini's DNA", says Daniela Fantini. “It was my father - who passed away suddenly when I was young, I was 28, in 1990 - who found that sketch at the bottom of a folder of project proposals for Fantini that the two architects had prepared.
With a gesture of green marker Mercatali had drawn the Toys, while he chatted... And he was immediately certain that he had to produce it! Here: that is the moment in which the attentive antennas of the designers bring the new trend, with an entrepreneur ready to welcome".
The Toys were presented for the first time at the Mostra Convegno di Milano in 1978 in an installation, designed by Mercatali and Pedrizzetti, which was entitled “The Land of Toys ” in homage to Collodi and Pinocchio, making the tap, a small functional accessory without identity, the protagonist of the bathroom environment.
For the first time a product linked only to metal, until then always seen only as a technical element, was colored and its playful and aesthetic aspect prevailed.
The market response was enormous: Compasso d'Oro ADI selection in 1979, BIO of Ljubljana in 1981, protagonist of the covers of sector magazines and included in various museum collections of the most important designs in the world. “It was an instinctive project – stated Paolo Pedrizzetti – both on our part and on the part of the company.