Vitra

Almost no other animal enjoys such popularity as the elephant. Admired for its majestic size and loved for its proverbial good-humour, it is part of our everyday experience as a child's cuddly toy, a storybook character and a majestic creature. The Eames elephant is now available for the first time in a plastic version for those it was originally intended for: children. This friendly-looking animal with its distinctive, over-sized ears is bound to bring cheer and enjoyment to many a child's and parent's heart.

Vitra has manufactured furniture designs by Charles & Ray Eames and George Nelson since 1957. The company has developed a wide range of furniture for the office, home and public spaces. Yet Vitra is more than just a design-oriented manufacturing company. The name also stands for the Vitra Design Museum, for a collection of modern furniture and its accompanying archive, for workshops and publications on topics of design, and for an architectural concept that unites buildings by designers all over the world.

Charles and Ray Eames are among the most important American designers of this century. They are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design (ever heard of the Eames Chair?), industrial design and manufacturing and the photographic arts. They transformed their classic designs into plastic creations for kids. Charles and Ray married in 1941 and moved to California, where they designed furniture with molding plywood. Their molded plywood chair was called "the chair of the century" by the influential architectural critic Esther McCoy.