catalogue
who am I made for?
Who hunts? Who gathers?
What is being sold here?
hyper-plastic love
After having worked for Du Pont for several years – a company making most of its money producing parts for gas masks and signal lamps for the U.S. Navy during World War II – Earl Silas Tupper decided to start a business on his own. He left with a piece of Polyethylene, – a remain from the oil refining process – and transformed it into the food storage containers that we know as Tupperware.
this air-tight lid won’t keep me mute
Tupperware was first sold in department stores, which was a huge flop. People didn’t trust Tupper’s new kind of plastic and didn’t get the concept of his air-tight seal. But all of that changed when direct sellers added Tupperware products to their demonstrations, since the product could directly be explained and sold in people’s homes.
I don’t care about your sandwich, man
The target consumer: the homemaker. Disguised as social and sustainable boxes, these little food containers became the main agents of a successful business model, mainly keeping a woman’s business between living room an kitchen.
what kind of party is this?
From 1948 until 2018 you could only buy Tupperware at homeparties. The concept of Tupperparties was developed by Brownie Wise, a Stanley Home Products Saleswoman.
fed up with you
She became vice president of the company and also the face of Tupperware until Earl Silas Tupper got too jealous of her having so much success that he kicked her out and buried the 600 remaining copies of her published book in a pit behind headquarters.
left over
Mr. Tupper sold his company for 16 million dollars in the same year he fired Brownie Wise and bought himself an island in Costa Rica. Brownie Wise made a new attempt by founding a new party-plan cosmetics company, but was unsuccessful. Tupperparties persisted. Today, a new party starts every 3 seconds somewhere in the world.
I cost a lot more than money
Brownie got no more than one year’s salary of 30’000 dollars when she left. Every reference to her in company literature was eliminated.
I was manipulated into a practical form
Yes, Tupperware’s sales forces were mostly women. And yes, it might be true that women could take their first steps into the business world with these sales parties in the 1940s. But even if the company’s face was female: It was run by men. And it kept women stuck in the role of the homemaker between living room and kitchen – exploiting the stereotype by making a million dollar business out of it.
catalogue
who am I made for?
Who hunts? Who gathers?
What is being sold here?
hyper-plastic love
After having worked for Du Pont for several years – a company making most of its money producing parts for gas masks and signal lamps for the U.S. Navy during World War II – Earl Silas Tupper decided to start a business on his own. He left with a piece of Polyethylene, – a remain from the oil refining process – and transformed it into the food storage containers that we know as Tupperware.
this air-tight lid won’t keep me mute
Tupperware was first sold in department stores, which was a huge flop. People didn’t trust Tupper’s new kind of plastic and didn’t get the concept of his air-tight seal. But all of that changed when direct sellers added Tupperware products to their demonstrations, since the product could directly be explained and sold in people’s homes.
I don’t care about your sandwich, man
The target consumer: the homemaker. Disguised as social and sustainable boxes, these little food containers became the main agents of a successful business model, mainly keeping a woman’s business between living room an kitchen.
what kind of party is this?
From 1948 until 2018 you could only buy Tupperware at homeparties. The concept of Tupperparties was developed by Brownie Wise, a Stanley Home Products Saleswoman.
fed up with you
She became vice president of the company and also the face of Tupperware until Earl Silas Tupper got too jealous of her having so much success that he kicked her out and buried the 600 remaining copies of her published book in a pit behind headquarters.
left over
Mr. Tupper sold his company for 16 million dollars in the same year he fired Brownie Wise and bought himself an island in Costa Rica. Brownie Wise made a new attempt by founding a new party-plan cosmetics company, but was unsuccessful. Tupperparties persisted. Today, a new party starts every 3 seconds somewhere in the world.
I cost a lot more than money
Brownie got no more than one year’s salary of 30’000 dollars when she left. Every reference to her in company literature was eliminated.
I was manipulated into a practical form
Yes, Tupperware’s sales forces were mostly women. And yes, it might be true that women could take their first steps into the business world with these sales parties in the 1940s. But even if the company’s face was female: It was run by men. And it kept women stuck in the role of the homemaker between living room and kitchen – exploiting the stereotype by making a million dollar business out of it.
