Our initial brainstorms:

We'd gone through a brainstorming session in class and were still thinking about what to do as we left the classroom...

We wanted to create something functional and whimsical-not targeted just towards kids, but something humorous...

The inspiration for Concetta:

Italian grandmothers and badly decorated bathrooms...

Let's address the badly decorated bathrooms first...do any of the following pictures look familiar?

I'm sure you can understand our sentiments...

As for our other inspiration:

Dolls such as those pictured below are often found astride extra rolls of toilet paper (on top of the toilet tank) in the restrooms of Italian grannies and aunts.

Perhaps it's just an Italian granny thing...They're also known as "poupee dolls" (and yes, that is a funny and appropriate name)...

They sit on top of rolls of toilet paper to hide their "unsightliness." Why TP is considered unsightly, we don't really know...but the dolls are whimsical and eye-catching ;-)

Cynara was inspired by the crocheted dress to incorporate a doll like these in our project: The basic idea was to have it "come down from above" (angelic, and there's no point in having a TP delivery system if the refills are already conveniently placed...) bearing toilet paper (a gift from the gods!) to the hapless person on the seat :-) It would be somehow loaded under her skirt and when she reached the bottom of her path, she would lift her skirt to display the toilet paper!

However, our plans changed...

For more details, visit our online design journal: Click here.

Back to top.