Toshiyuki Kita, Ashtray, ashtray for the BLEND Collection

It was a time when the tobacco industry could still collaborate with big names from the design world as a matter of course. The Swedish tobacco company Svenska Tobaks – later Swedish Match – had a rather clever idea: they invited internationally renowned designers and architects to design something unimaginably banal – an ashtray. This was the birth of the BLEND Collection. The ashtrays were intended to promote the BLEND cigarette brand.

Participants invited were: Marc Newson, Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Rossi, Jasper Morrison, Andrée Putman, Toshiyuki Kita, Love Arbén and Studio Garouste & Bonetti. The designs were presented on May 18, 1995, at the Design Museum in London. A book accompanied the exhibition. In 1996, the exhibition was also shown at the Louvre in Paris and subsequently at the Millesgården Museum in Stockholm.

Not all the ashtrays were produced. They were never sold either, but were given away as promotional items! What that must have all cost. The ashtray offered here by Toshiyuki Kita is unused, absolutely new, and comes in its original packaging.

Toshiyuki Kita 1995
Edition BLEND Collection 1996
Aluminum, hand-cast, polished
Dimensions Ø 12.5 cm, 3 cm high

The item is subject to differential taxation according to § 25a UStG.