Aluminum shortages during World War II almost doomed the Moka Express, but sales took off again when Alfonso’s son, Renato, took over the business and introduced l’Omino con i baffi (“the little man with the mustache”) as its mascot in the late 1950s. The character—whose image, based on Renato himself, is printed on the side of every Moka Express—has become just as iconic as Alfonso’s invention. (When Renato died in 2016, his cremated remains were buried in a specially made Moka Express.) Over the years, the Moka Express has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art and at Cooper Hewitt in New York, at the London Science Museum, and at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, among others.
