b-ing Lifestyle
Vipp
Much more than a watsebin
The Danish brand's iconic bin has paved the way for kitchens, housewares and furniture.
It was in 1939 when Marie Nielsen asked her husband Holger to create a waste paper basket for her beauty salon, which he did. This first Vipp waste paper bin was not actually manufactured for commercial purposes then. But it was a resounding success with the clientele -many doctors' wives who came to the salon- and numerous orders led its creator to produce on a larger scale, until that pedal bin became a ubiquitous detail in Danish practices and clinics. And its demand has continued to grow ever since, even internationally. In November 2009, it became part of the permanent collection of design icons at MoMA in New York.
Interesting it wasn’t until 1949 that the cover stopped being made from corrugated metal and adopted its rounded shape that we know today. And ‘vippe’, which in Danish means ‘an inclined position or movement’, describes the way the closing mechanism of the bin.
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By the mid-1990s, Holger’s heirs set out to make the brand principles known to all audiences and through the world of home decoration. This is when the designer Morten Bo Jensen came into the picture, he was tasked with leading the way into the future, coming up with designs of a toilet brush, a clothes basket, a set of salt and pepper shakers, lamps... Later the brand launched a programme of modular kitchens, of which there are now two models: the original V.1 (raised off the ground on legs and made of steel) and the V.2 (made of wood, aluminium, glass and natural stone). The modules can be configured as an island, free standing with seats, against a wall or a column.
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When Shelter was launched in 2014 it caused a sensation: the idea for a designer portable habitat in nature, but with the manufacturing standards of a submarine. As of 2017, the design has been reimagined as a series of unique accommodations or Vipp Hotels, offering the opportunity of experiencing Vipp products in unusual settings. As a result of this incursion into the hotel sector, the company has developed a collection of furniture to complete these spaces. Sofas, chairs, stools, tables, coffee tables, rugs and outdoor furniture created with a tactile expression. A concept that provides a contrast with Vipp’s emblematic material that it has been using for over 8 decades: steel.
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The philosophy that inspires all of Vipp products can be traced back to its first bin: to express function over form and to favour long lasting quality over passing trends. The headquarters of the only Vipp exclusive brand stores in the world (other than the official ones in Denmark and the USA, managed by the family) are located in Barcelona and Andorra, where private and professional clients will discover a fresh, genuine and impacting vision of design.
