How OXO Conquered the American Kitchen

The kitchenware company's head engineer, Mack Mor, had dug through the archives to find some product prototypes to help me understand how OXO designs and develops gadgets. Now, sitting on a table in the employee break room, amid jury-rigged cherry pitters and spiralizers constructed from sawed-apart water bottles, was a large, baby blue Tiffany box, of the sort in which you might expect to see encased a sparkling wedding present. Mor opened the box--and revealed the company's very first salad spinner. OXO revolutionized the salad spinner, to be sure. But to see this humble prototype--Frankenstein'd out of a child's toy top and some hand-carved plastic, dull with age--swaddled inside a gorgeous Tiffany box made me laugh. OXO, with its embrace of dutiful, functional design and every-cook utility, certainly wasn't Tiffany. Maybe not, but don't tell that to the people who love OXO.