Lotysz, Slawomir (Author)
Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology
Volume: 24
Pages: 150-184
Edition Details: Fiftieth Anniversary Issue
Language: English
The clothes iron is the most basic item of household equipment. It has been present in European homes for the last two hundred years; long enough to have become part of popular culture. The advent of electric irons in the first few decades of the 20th century was welcomed as a revolutionary change, making household duties less exhausting. Electric irons are believed to be the most persistent of household items in terms of the continuity of industrial design. According to Japanese designer Yokho Uga, it takes twenty-seven years before the design of an iron is morally worn out. However, until very recently, customers in Poland could buy an iron that has hardly changed since the late 1960s, when it was first marketed as the ‘model C-28’. Over time, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, Polish designers and engineers worked on refining the immortal C-28, but none of its subsequent reincarnations were any better than the original. Nevertheless, the producer of the C-28, the Dezamet company, monopolized the domestic market for decades, selling millions of irons every year at home and abroad. And yet, they were unable to pioneer any new design trends or to catalyze any significant technological innovations. This paper uses a case study of the C-28 to reconstruct how innovation, quality, functionality and aesthetics were negotiated in a state-controlled economy. It also analyzes the relation between the communist party leaders, ministries, institutes of industrial design, management of factories and the customers.
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