By the next year, 1967, Creative Playthings had changed the copy on their molded plywood crib and stroller to be more gender neutral. But a cradle this awesomely minimalist would rock [umm] for either a boy or a girl, frankly.
These designs all appeared about the same time as Gloria Caranica's Rocking Beauty hobby horse, and they won some contemporary awards, like the annual Good Design exhibition/competition that MoMA and the Chicago Athenaeum sponsored. But then, except for the horse, they largely disappeared. [Or am I just equating "disappeared" with "not getting misattributed to your boss" and "not getting knocked off by DWR"?]
It's just a hunch, but if it turns out that Caranica was involved in these really well-resolved designs, too, I think we're due for a fairly significant rewriting of mid-century design history.
Previous Molded Plywood Week entries: Swingline kid's furniture by Henry Glass; Creative Playthings plywood carriage; modern Sirch ply- and bentwood stroller; Muji plywood car
