The Valentine

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Description

Ettore Sottsass designed the red plastic Valentine typewriter in 1969 for the modernist Italian firm Olivetti. Since 1958, Ettore Sottsass worked regularly with Olivetti, in exchange for total creative freedom. The Valentine was described by Olivetti as "a real pop object designed to blend into the private space." The typewriter had always been associated with the emancipation of women, but now the object itself was feminized. At once provocative and alluring, the bright red color and name could also be associated with the Italian Formula One, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, artists from Italian pop art, and the cartoon-style prints of Warhol and Lichtenstein, all of which Sottsass used in his 1969 advertising campaign. And then there is Valentina, the sensual Italian cartoon-strip heroine created by Guido Crepax, a liberated young woman who acts out her erotic fantasies, sporting a haircut that is a conscious allusion to Hollywood rebel Louise Brooks but also reminds us of the sleek