Nothing had really been done in a serious way with kitchen gadgets. It instantly dawned on him, here’s an opportunity to make a product. She recognized: “This is something that could be made better, and my husband used to be a housewares executive, and he should do something about it.” She was very involved in looking at things, trying things, and giving her input along the way. I think she initiated the idea of, “Sam, can you do something about this? Make a better handle.” She grabbed some clay and started on her own. Her background was in architecture and design. As I remember, it was an apple tart, though Betsey claims it wasn’t an apple tart. He was cooking with Betsey, she had arthritis, and she was complaining about the peeler, complaining that it was hurting her hands. in the morning, and he’s incredibly excited. One night I’m in my office, it’s 7:30 p.m., and I get a call from Sam. He and his wife Betsey spent a month cooking and enjoying the French countryside. That stuck in his mind during his annual vacation in Southern France. It was a great idea killed by retail, and it made him realize, he’d spent his life developing housewares products, he knew that well, and it’s what he should stick to. They said it’s not a toy, it’s juvenile furniture. The juvenile furniture buyers said it wasn’t furniture, it was a construction toy. We got patents on it, developed prototypes, started taking it around to buyers at stores who would take it. He thought that was a fantastic thing to start a business around. It was this giant-scale construction toy. We came up with this idea of a toy that was basically crates, and you could add wheels to it, make into cars, bookcases, toy boxes.
At the time he had grown children and thought we could design something for kids. So he wanted to develop a product that he could go back into business with. He absolutely could not stand to be retired. He came into my office, and was ranting on about how he absolutely needed to be making and selling things.
When he sold the company, he was retired for about six months. We connected with him in the early days of Smart, and designed a number of products for Copco. He started a company called Copco, which made tea kettles and designed housewares. –Mark Wilson, senior writer, Fast Company An Idea Borne Of Failure But talking to Smart’s founder, Davin Stowell, I had no clue how rich the history was, including cameos from Monsanto, samurai sword makers, and retail magicians from another era. What follows is his lightly edited story–an insider’s account of the world’s most famous vegetable peeler. Over the years, abridged versions of the peeler’s origin story have been shared in design museums and even business schools. How many consumer products are truly that lasting? It’s why the peeler won our inaugural Timeless Design award as part of Innovation by Design 2018.
And nearly three decades after its release, it maintains 4.8 stars out of 5 on Amazon yet still costs under $10. It was inducted into MoMA’s permanent collection in 1994. Created by Smart Design, in conjunction with OXO International’s launch in 1990, it raised the bar for accessible consumer products, and changed the way kitchen tools were designed forever. The Swivel Peeler was the collection’s flagship product.
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