One of Italy’s great contemporary architects, Alessandro Mendini, died last month. During his long life he was strikingly successful in every aspect of design, from the architecture of the Groninger Museum through his influential work with the Memphis group in Milan to his early days editing Modo and Domus magazines.

He brought a playful – and colourful – sensibility into his work, typified and made accessible in his Anna G corkscrew. Designed 25 years ago for Italian company Alessi, the quirky corkscrew has gone on to sell more than 1.5 million units.

Describing his design process for the item, he said his first instinct was to create an anthropomorphic shape, and he drew a curvaceous ballerina with a full skirt, a neat bob, a long graceful neck and a smiling face. It was Alberto Alessi who, when presented with the drawing, noticed the similarity between it and a mutual friend – fellow designer Anna Gili – and so the corkscrew got its name.

It has been produced in many colourways, and Mendini extended its kitschy appeal into a range of similarly playful homeware designs for the Italian manufacturer.