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STYLISHVauxhall Magazine; July 2006

Cool credCool cred

Style icons come in all shapes and sizes and in a range of technologies. But from Alessi to Zippo, they all have one thing in common - universal STREET-CRED. Words by Martin Gurdon

IPOD A British innovation with a massive world wide impact, computer giant Apple's iPod MP3 player, designed by iMac computer creator Jonathan Ives, first appeared in 2002. With its clean white simplicity, clever 'click wheel' controls and fashionably compact, pocket-friendly dimensions, the iPod ushered in the world of music downloads and massive music libraries to go. To date 42 million have been sold. The iPod is a modern, world-class design classic, found on every high street.

Levi Strauss jeans Levi Strauss, a San Francisco-based German émigré merchant, sold cloth to tailor Jacob Davis, who made working clothes including denim 'waist overall' trousers (so called because they were worn over regular garments). One of Jacob's customers kept tearing his pockets, so he thought of riveting these and the garment's other stress areas. Lacking $68 for a patent, Jacob co-opted Levi as a business partner for his riveted clothes, and together they did secure the patent, in 1873. Today's Levi's jeans are direct descendents of their original garments.

Zippo Lighter The creation of one George G Blaisdell of Bradford, Pennsylvania in 1932, and inspired by earlier Austrian lighter designs, the distinctive, rectangular Zippo featured a flip-up hinged lid, fluid fuel with a wick, a thumb-wheel



igniter, and a wind-cheating flame surround. The name 'Zippo' was derived from 'zipper,' simply because Blaisdell liked the sound of the word and was interested in the then-new clothing zips. Zippo lighters are still guaranteed for life and the design has barely changed.

Alessi kettle A whistling kettle is hardly an obvious style icon, but the conical Alessi '9093' model, with its distinctive 'bird whistle' sound, bucks this trend. Its timeless, architectural shape only dates back to the mid-1980s, but it will be very familiar, even to those who don't own one, so long as they've ever thumbed through the colour supplement style pages or poked their head round the door of any trendy kitchen equipment emporium. The classic Alessi, much imitated but never bettered, is the work of Michael Graves, an architect who moved into industrial design.

Sony Walkman Daddy of the modern personal stereo (the iPod might never have happened without it) the Sony Walkman debuted in 1979, in spite of scepticism that a portable stereo