RICORDI & BALOCCHI

In search of the lost dolls (of ourselves)

We all had got our favourite one.
I don't remember my best-loved doll's name, but I can clearly remember, as though I could be hugging her now tightly, her all-plastic texture, her blond, most stringy hair featuring an unlikely fringe, but above all I can thoroughly recall the nice small clothes I used to sew for her, helped by my patient Granny Giuseppina.
In her garage Granny used to keep sacks full of manifold cloths, and she allowed me to steal them to make the Autumn/Winter or Spring/Summer collection for my super-fashionable favourite doll, always striving after improving her look.

What was yours like? Can you still remember her? What would you be willing to do to get her back in your hands? Wouldn't you like to hug her again and, by encountering her, to be again for a few short instants the plump and calm little girl you used to be … not really THAT long ago?

Ricordi & Balocchi (Memories and Playthings) is then the perfect place for you.
A couple has decided to turn their passion for toys into a job, but playthings mean for them neither play-stations nor xBoxes.
The placid husband and wife have turned vintage and collector's toys into their way of life, and they let us plunge into the past, into memories and feel nostalgic about the good old days, when such words as waxing, cellulite, infidelity and diet were totally unknown to us.
Who knows? They might get erased again from our current data storage unit through one of their toys …

Ricordi & Balocchi
via Donizetti, 2
20122 Milano
Tel. 02 5511786
Open: 10-13 / 15.30-19.30 - saturday only by appointement