In its new installation featuring the new Vipp yellow bin, the Danish brand pays homage to its most iconic product, looking back to its origins and celebrating the people who have made the brand great. Unveiled during 3 Days of Design 2023, the installation takes over the Copenhagen Vipp store and offers the brand an opportunity to also explore a new approach to colour.

The Vipp yellow bin: how it started

It was 1939 when Marie Axelsen asked her husband, Holger Nielsen, to create a bin she could use in her hairdressing salon. A skilled metalsmith, Nielsen created the bin and called it Vipp, the Danish word for ‘tilt’ – the rest is design history. The new edition of the iconic pedal bin is characterised by a joyful pale yellow shade (Axelsen’s favourite colour). ‘We have celebrated my father and his pedal bin incessantly at Vipp,’ says Jette Egelund, Axelsen’s and Nielsen’s daughter and the owner of Vipp. ‘And with good reason, since the company is built on his product. But it’s time to highlight the role that my mother played in this success story.’

As the legend goes, the original Vipp bin was never intended as a commercial product, but just as a hands-free tool for Axelsen. However, the salon’s customers were instantly attracted by the groundbreaking new bin, and started requesting it for themselves – prompting Nielsen to begin the production.

‘Without my mother’s entrepreneurial mindset and promotion of the bin in her hairdressing salon, Vipp would not be where it is today,’ continues Egelund. ‘She was a fashionable woman, ever stylish and often dressed in her favourite colour, yellow. So, it’s about time that we dedicate a Vipp collection to her, suitably dressed in yellow.’

For the occasion, the Vipp Copenhagen showroom features new colourful interpretations of the brand’s classics, from the swivel chair in new bold stripes to the daybed in a contemporary yellow flower pattern.

During 3 Days of Design, Vipp also unveiled its collaboration with Italian artist Paola Paronetto: the brand asked the ceramicist (who recently created packaging for Veuve Clicquot) to create a series of vessels that match the new yellow shade, also introducing her work in Copenhagen (Paronetto’s pieces will be available to buy exclusively from Vipp in the city).

The Vipp Yellow Bin is available on Vipp.com and in selected stores