This meeting took place on a huge, round, bean bag. This was not like a normal bean bag, it was a special one. It was made by the mother of one of the two girls with a very special cloth, fabricated for external use: oil proof, water proof, sunlight resistant, but also soft like cotton, produced without the use of nasty chemicals, easy to wash and with double lining. It's the kind of thing that on
ly a wise mother would do, with love. Yes, because normally bean bags have only one lining and they are impossible to wash properly. So this gigantic pillow was made for the whole family, parents, kids, dogs, cats, to crash in front of great movie or with a great book to read out laud all together. This meeting happened without a word, with bare foot, jumping up and down this big soft thing. It was like if it was alive. It was like a presence in the room, like if it was coming out of a fairytale book. Some eyes where stitched on it and so it was turned into a character, an Elephant: the first TANTOOO was born. “Tanto” means a “a lot” in Italian, so it was, and so it has been called. Later a smaller version of the Elephant was released, TANTINOOO (a small tanto). Then came the Giraffe and the little giraffe and more of them will follow along the way. TANTOOO is manufactured with love in Italy by two very experienced upholsterers, Giuliana and Maurizio. It was designed and conceived by Vania Ripa, professional upholsterer and Antonio Scarponi, architect and designer. They also happened to be the parents of those two little girls. Vania was trained as educator for children with special needs and served for long time after deciding to recover an upholsterer laboratory that belonged to her family for four generations, keeping alive a long tradition Italian artisanry. Antonio is and architect and designer, he is the founder of Conceptual Devices, Zurich. Vania and Antonio are cousins-in-law.
