Vipp

I am often something of a cheapskate, yet occasionally will spend absurd sums on items that have caught my eye. Take, for instance the Vipp 13 pedal bin pictured above. The current suggested UK retail price for one of these is £235. I bought one for something like half that amount about twenty years ago. I’d seen it in a fancy designer homewares store near my apartment in Sweden. There were several such appealing shops in the town where I lived. To generalise and stereotype, one might say that Swedes are more prone to allocate rather more of their disposable income for upmarket home decor than for designer clothes & accessories; whereas for Italians, the converse might be true. In any event, I was pleased with my ridiculous purchase: it ‘sparked joy’, as the expression goes.

Tragedy struck when I moved back to the UK: in a mix-up with the movers, the Vipp bin was left behind. Some years later, when the cheap bin I’d bought from Argos by way of replacement was rusting where there was metal and cracking where there was plastic, I pondered getting another Vipp. Bathroom bins aren’t the sort of item that most people would contemplate buying second-hand, yet that’s exactly what I ended up doing. An ebay seller had a stock of the things ostensibly from the rooms in a defunct boutique hotel. I ordered the one above for something in the region of £60-£80 – much less than a new one would have set me back, but still very far from cheap for such a humble item. Nevertheless I was delighted to have such a good quality bin in my bathroom again.

Only on taking the picture above did I notice the wonkiness of the pedal, which I’ll admit is bothering me slightly. Having said that, when looking at the bin from the usual higher vantage point, the angle of the pedal is barely noticeable, so I don’t think I’ll be losing any sleep over it.