The Amici Collection

The Amici, Poi ti spiego and MOU cup collections embody a milestone in the history of Amici. Francesco Illy created this idea in collaboration with famous artists and designers. Encouraged by a deep inspiration, the artists, who represent very different environments and movements, transfer the...

I met Matteo for the first time on a spring day in 1991. He had just received my briefing on how I wanted the new Amici cup to look. He said: "I've never read such an interesting document. You say that a simple coffee cup involves all the senses, from the most obvious sense of smell, as it has...

So work began on the first collection, “Arti e Mestieri 1992” (Arts and Crafts 1991): Matteo created a beautiful drawing, I photographed my ties with some golden inserts, Luca Missoni, a friend of Matteo's, created his "Planet Coffee" for us, and Mino Fusco, the designer of the X9, and Maurizio...

When the cups arrived in Italy's coffee shops, everyone wanted them. In actual fact, I thought that we should have sold them to people who wanted them, but our marketing department only wanted to put beautiful cups on the counters of our coffee shops. People wanted them so much, that they...

My Dream: A Moment in Which You Feel So Good that You Forget Your Work for a Second. At that time, I was talking to Professor Max Lüscher, the great scholar of shapes and colours, known in Switzerland as “Farbe-Lüscher”. He and other professors, such as Spiegel and Koeber-Riel helped me...

1992 Francesco Illy, “Ties, oh my ties.” Luca Missoni, “Pianeta caffè” Matteo Thun, “Misterious coffee” Paolo Cervi Kervischer, “Tunji” Maurizio Cargnelli, “Digital coffee” Cosimo “Mino” Fusco, “Vaganti su bianco” 1992 Sandro Chia 1993 Paolo rossetti, “human...