Julien Bergignat : Toups bottle stopper

Imaginés par le designer français Julien Bergignat, Toups sont des bouchons de bouteille en liège et inox dont le chapeau pointu forme une toupie.

About : “Both bottle stoppers and spinning tops, Toups is composed of two objects unusual and so evident to use.

The main idea is to give back a traditional feeling to the bottle stoppers mainly made of metal or plastic, by using cork. This material is a vital element in enology and compose the body of the cap, it is sniffed, touched and looked as much as the wine can be tasted.

Most of the bottle stopper we can find, have a metal part usually used as a weight to close properly a bottle. And the main body has generally a conical shape, to fit in different bottle neck. Toups is inspired by the same typology of shape, an opposition between heaviness and lightness that we can find in a child’s toy: the spinning top. It needs a mass, carefully distributed on its base to be able to turned, and a lighter “handle” to launch it. So it’s a sort of cap, turned upside down, isn’t it ?!

“When I was a kid, I often find myself sitting at the table of adults, without really knowing what to do, to staying there and not always understanding what it was about. When I was a kid, in these circumstances, the table became a real playgroung. And I can admit that the cork cap of the opened bottles, offered a great potential…”

Try to remember those moments and you will suddenly understand the combination of a functional object and a funny object together. Without making compromised on use, nobility and poetry.

But more than that, Toups is a good example of a sustainable approach of design, the top part is the “strong” and functional element, the one that people will keep in time. The cork body is the “reference” element, the one that tell you the story of wine. As wine this one will get old and might also be damage, but user can easily replace it with a new body, or even use a classical cork cap and connect it on the spinning top. Finally Toups us a combination of metal and cork (instead of metal and rubber or plastic), for this reason is much lighter and easier to transport than the actual bottle stopper.

 

For some people the main body of Toups will look light, elegant and noble thanks to the cork ; the top will be understand as heavy, pure and fonctionnal. But for the younger ones Toups might be understand in a more funny way… So let’s play!”

Photos © Julien Bergignat

+ Via Julien Bergignat