This $1,250 status trash can is also an avant-garde piece of art

The Vipp Pedal Bin has been reinterpreted by artists including Damien Hirst and Yoko Ono. Now, contemporary artist Alice Ronchi is putting her own spin on the classic.

In the vast, ancient world of product design, there’s one 85-year-old classic so iconic that it’s served as a muse for dozens of artists, including Bono, Yoko Ono, Yves Behar, and Damien Hirst. This product has been turned into a car, a robot, and a grill; crushed in a hydraulic press; re-created into a tiny digital image to use instead of the “trash” icon on computer screens; and covered head-to-toe in feathers. In 2009, it became part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And it was a winner of the prestigious Monocle Design Awards 2023.