With the help of these designers Alessi has become the "dream factory". No other company in the world has brought together poetry, creativity, culture, foresight, sincerity, modernism and design excellence as we have in the last quarter of the 20th century. This definition sums up our mission well and is directed towards the new public of the 21st century, for whom cultural capital takes precedence over economic capital, style is more important than status.

A public that knows how to make its way critically through the consumer society and appreciates our efforts to express in every project a touch of transcendence, because only in this way will design as a new art form be able to help us decipher our modernity. In describing this public I like to use this "dreamer" metaphor. In other words those who know how to use their imagination and are therefore able to appreciate the poetry and that rare marriage of eccentricity and style, which makes our items so unique. Eccentricity and style, playfulness and culture, irony and elegance: a game of opposites of which I believe no other company can boast such a strict defence or such a precise vocation.

It was our valued master craftsmen, who fired the relentless research which in recent years has led us on to experiment with new materials, new technologies and new product territories.
"Alessi Watches" is one such territory. The collection of wrist watches(*1), which we present in this catalogue, has been developed in conjunction with SII Marketing International of Austin, Texas, a company that brings together vast professional experience in the field of Japanese and American watchmaking. Together we have been able to create the new Alessi line of watches, which, as you will see, not only features excellent design but also the very best in state-of-the-art technique, at the right price and with an efficient after sales assistance program.

(*1) The first collection of watches by Alessi, presented at the end of the 1980s, included designs by Aldo Rossi, Achille Castiglioni, Richard Sapper, Matteo Thun and Mario Botta.