This guest post on Urban Croquet is by designer Alice Kaiserswerth. When John Jaques made croquet an overnight craze in England 150 years ago, he packaged a game that fit perfectly into the physical and social spaces of the mid 19th Century - casual, fun, social, and played in the spacious gardens of the gentry or any clearing sufficient to install hoops and stakes. The free-wheeling spirit of those formative days of croquet is gone forever. Or is it? Alice Kaiserswerth decided to take on the challenge of recreating croquet as a “universal” pastime for the 21st century. Her design covers everything from playing surfaces (anything) to clothing (mostly white) and players (youngish and beautiful, naturally). Clearly, such a reinvention could never be realized by croquet associations and clubs, or even motivated entrepreneurs. The project Alice designed with the support of Adidas would have to be done by a corporation, backed with a sizable investment in advertising and promotion. The stodgy image of croquet would have to be entirely reshaped. What are the chances such a thing could ever happen?
Yanko Design - Modern Industrial Design News
