Designs for All > Unsung Classics: Flexible Drinking Straw

A very well known lady in a popular south American magic realism novel would drink her coffee through a drinking straw not to erase her rouge á lévres. The fantastic use of the straw in that story does not bother to remember some other less social uses of the straw after its invention.

Joseph Friedman was an American inventor who in the 30’s decade of the last century put big efforts in several inventions. The developing of the fountain pen was one of his first occupations. He sold the invention to Sheaffer. He also put a lot of effort to develop the drinking straw with a bending part.

While watching a little girl he assumed how difficult it was for her to be able to reach the end of the straw. So far he thought of making a few pleats on the paper straw and came up with a simple but clever system to make all able to drink with no hands. Before the bending drinking straw there was the rigid one. It was in 1939 that was first manufactured the bending straw. And about 1949 the bending straw hit first hospitals and after it reached the general markets.
That first idea of the drinking straw opened the path to fantasy and in the eighties not few designers created colorful straws with fluorescent materials and impossible shapes of knots and bows. Designers such as Fiorucci included in their style these fantastic straws. Straws are widely employed:

• It's a hygienically method of drinking.

• It’s very comfortable and allows several possibilities.

• It’s a constantly renovate design with new colors and materials.