When was tupperware popular

But computers didn't! Although you might think Tupperware parties went the way of the poodle skirt, they still occur worldwide and are the main outlet for selling Tupperware. Over , Tupperware parties are held each year in France alone. In , Tupperware Brands Corp. That's enough to make us consider throwing a Tupperware party ourselves. Product Reviews. Home Ideas. United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. The success of the parties was down to a couple of key factors. Firstly, in the postwar era, Americans became mobile for the first time.

The parties gave women an instant way of meeting their neighbours and settling in. Secondly, it gave them a way of maintaining their domestic responsibilities while earning their own money and being independent.

The first British party was in October at the home of Mila Pond in Weybridge, and the company will be celebrating that later this year with, you guessed it, a giant Tupperware party. Although the company has stayed true to its roots, selling only through approved consultants, it has moved with the times. The range has expanded to include microwave, freezer ware, and products such as knives and scissors. You can also now book a breakfast party, a barbecue party, and an any time-you-fancy party.

So if you want to give it a go, visit www. They might be closer than you think. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

And what experts agree was crucial to achieving worldwide ubiquity for this practical product was the hitherto commercially untapped power of female friendship. The famous Tupperware parties, at which the containers were sold, were prototype girls' nights in, as much about getting to know one's neighbours as they were about commerce.

From a 21st Century perspective, it may sound demeaning. But according to Alison Clarke, professor of design history and theory at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and author of Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in s America, the parties were revolutionary in that they offered an alternative model for commercial success based around female co-operation rather than aggressive competition.

It was the opposite of Mad Men. Indeed, Tupperware - launched onto the market by inventor Earl Tupper in - had languished in the market until the intervention of the extraordinary proto-businesswoman who pioneered the company's "party plan".

Brownie Wise, abandoned by her husband, struggling to meet her sick son's medical bills, had begun selling the containers to make ends meet. The model quickly grew into a world-wide, multimillion-dollar success. Just as Tupperware was marketed as a space-age labour-saving component of the new consumer era, so too was Wise herself an early embodiment of post-war feminist demands that women should be given the opportunity to succeed in business.

In she was the first woman to appear on the front cover of Business Week magazine, pictured sitting in a peacock chair surrounded by young male executives. With her pink Cadillac and a canary dyed to match, her lace dresses and pet palomino pony, her public image married aspirational ambition with femininity.

Indeed, Prof Clarke argues that Wise symbolised the real beneficiaries of Tupperware, women who would not have found it easy to enter the world of business - very often those from ethnic minorities or divorcees, like Wise herself, who needed the work.