Vipp
Kasper Egelund, CEO of Vipp, reflects on the brand’s enduring design legacy and its collaboration with Studio KO at 3daysofdesign in Copenhagen.
Vipp’s story began in 1939 with a pedal bin designed for a hairdressing salon. More than eight decades later, that same bin remains in production: a design icon that embodies the Danish brand’s enduring values of functionality, craftsmanship and beauty. “We’re usually saying that the design philosophy of Vipp is taken straight out of the bin,” says Vipp CEO Kasper Egelund. “Now that it has been in production for 86 years, I can say it’s a classic.”
It was Egelund’s grandfather who designed that bin, and over time, the brand has carefully grown and expanded to a complete furniture range. “The Vipp journey has been kind of an evolution,” he says. “You do something, you try it out, you see if it works, you try to learn from what doesn’t work and move on … The beauty of having a family business is you can be really long-term and you can also allow your personal passion to enter the business.” For Egelund, that passion has taken form in architecture and travel, driving Vipp’s expansion into a series of guesthouses across the world that allow people to experience the brand’s products as they were intended – in a living space.
This year at Denmark’s premier design festival, 3daysofdesign, Vipp collaborated with French-Moroccan architects Studio KO to reimagine a mid-century garage at Vipp’s Copenhagen headquarters as a striking guesthouse installation. “Our exhibition this year is a project where we are merging the spirit of Marrakesh and Danish design heritage,” says Egelund. “That clash between aesthetics and culture I find to be humorous and fun.” Inside the installation, a charred wood structure conceals a glowing copper kitchen – Vipp’s V1 – alongside iconic Vipp pieces like the Swivel chair and the original 1939 pedal bin.
For Vipp, participating in 3daysofdesign is an opportunity to share these ideas on home ground. “3daysofdesign has become really important because it’s really nice for us to play at our home field here in Denmark,” he says. “We have more to show the world than when we go to a booth in Paris or Milan.”
Partnering with Cult Design to bring Vipp products to Australia was also a logical choice for Egelund. “I think that the Danish design and the minimalist approach to products is growing with significant interest in Australia,” he adds. “The partnership just grew into this fruitful situation where they have most of our collection available for the Australian market.”
With the belief in “doing less, but better” and designing products that can be passed down for generations, Vipp is ensuring its incredible design legacy continues to endure.
