#hellerware

Ingrid Hellerware plastic picnic set

A huge loss to the design community... Alan was one of the greatest enablers of great design. This is a beautiful retrospective of his contributions to our profession, and an essential introduction if his name is new to you.

Five Vintage Metal and Glass Highball Tumblers with Leaf Pattern by Hellerware

https://www.etsy.com/listing/211890873/five-vintage-metal-and-glass-highball

Multiple listings have just been posted on the mod fix online store and etsy store! Get it while it's hot!

the mod fix etsy store went up today!  Come check us out!  More products to come.

Recently during in our search for inventory items across various antique shops, estate sales, and auctions the mod fix keeps coming across collections of stackable  mod plastic wares from the mid to late 1960s.  They seem to be quite popular and fetch unexpectedly high prices.  So what exactly is Hellerware, and why does it continue to rise in popularity? 

Check out this article on Hellerware from Plastics: history & artifacts

"This collection of now-iconic stacking dishes was initially named Max I and manufactured by Aricoli Plastici Electrici of Colono Monzese, Italy, a company then involved in the production of melamine formaldehyde (often shorted to melamine or MF) Mickey Mouse ashtrays. According to designer Massimo Vingelli, these dishes were "designed to be stackable in a compact way. [They] won our first Compasso d'Oro for good design in 1964." The manufacturer, however, went out of business, and the molds were stored in a basement for several years. One set of dishes was owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York which loaned it to the Museum of Contemporary Crafts for an exhibition in 1966. Entrepreneur Alan Heller, who saw the exhibit, decided to import the dishware to the United States. He traveled to Milan, found the molds, and revived production.

The dinnerware was originally made of bright yellow melamine resin, but when Vignelli licensed for production in the United States, a range of bright colors were introduced, allowing consumers to mix and match their sets. The American version of these extremely popular dishes was introduced as Heller Compact Stacking Dinnerware, and it has come to be known as Hellerware. The initial offering included two covered bowls, two lipped plates, a square tray, and a rectangular tray, all of which stacked together. Matching and stackable cups and saucers were introduced in 1970. Mugs were added to the line in 1972, and in 1978 a pitcher was added. Vignelli wrote, "I like design to be semantically correct, syntactically consistent, and pragmatically understandable. I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless."