Uniting coffee expertise with visionary design
For the festive season, Nespresso invites Club Members to enhance their coffee tasting ritual with Les Collections gift sets.
Design is written into the Nespresso DNA. Since its founding over 25 years ago, Nespresso has made the creative process a cornerstone of its machines and accessories, whose unmistakable identity emerges from the unique combination of aesthetics and functionality.
By uniting its own deep coffee expertise with unique creative visions from designers of international acclaim, Nespresso has developed Les Collections, several accessory ranges dedicated to the coffee ritual, each embodying its own distinct character.
Premium Collection: absolute luxury and sophisticated sensoriality
Nespresso enlisted the talents of expert perfumer Olivia Giacobetti and renowned designer Christian Ghion, to lend a sense of luxury to the everyday with the Premium Collection.
Inspired by fine jewellery and a spirit of haute couture, Christian Ghion celebrates the marriage of fine porcelain with the intensity of coffee with his Espresso and Lungo cups. The Espresso cups come in two exquisite variations: with a hand-painted gold handle, or with a festive gold enamel interior. Their luxurious feel reflects the expertise poured into the development of the cup’s design.
“One of the biggest challenges was to achieve the same thinness as the greatest porcelain makers,” explained Christian Ghion. “It was also tricky to create a cup that has both a fine bisque porcelain exterior as well as a delicate enamelled interior,” he continued.
Following the success of La Route du Café, the five-candle, coffee-inspired set she created for Nespresso, Master perfumer Olivia Giacobetti recently collaborated with Nespresso to create a new candle that captures the complex and enticing aromas of coffee. The candle emits a delicate balance of intense and smooth coffee aromas, which are blended harmoniously with notes of precious sandalwood enhanced by cocoa beans and Bourbon vanilla.
“Café Absolu takes you on an sensual journey to the heart of coffee, offering a warmth that delicately wafts through one’s home, prolonging the coffee tasting experience,” said Olivia Giacobetti.
Ritual Collection: heritage and savoir-faire unite in timeless design
Combining the beauty and art of tasting with elegant and timeless design, the Ritual Collection is the result of an encounter between two worlds of expertise. Nespresso called on Andrée & Olivia Putman to conceive a complete range of accessories designed to enhance every aspect of the Nespresso coffee ritual. The grandes dames of French design worked closely with Nespresso Coffee Experts to identify the technical elements required for perfect in-cup enjoyment as well as the emotional dimensions of coffee moments.
“We married the classic white espresso cup found in Parisian bars with the iconic shape of the Nespresso capsule that for so many people around the world has become synonymous with coffee,” explained Olivia Putman.
The light porcelain used for the cup perfectly preserves the heat of the coffee, while its concave interior ensures optimal crema formation. The cup interlocks with the saucer, like the capsule fits into the machine. The matching coloured rings on the cup base and saucer indicate the size of the coffee: espresso, lungo and cappuccino. And the spoons were designed to gently move the crema without breaking it.
PIXIE Collection: iconic and intuitive forms for playful coffee indulgence
The up-and-coming design studio 5.5 Designers from Paris was invited by Nespresso to create an accessory range to accompany the playful and compact PIXIE machine. Approaching the task with a sharp and spirited eye for design, 5.5 Designers created an audacious, fun and colourful collection of cult appeal for design fans and the young-at-heart.
“In creating the PIXIE collection, we drew our inspiration from the brand’s iconic elements. The Nespresso universe is so rich that ideas came easily and these objects soon became a ‘must’,” said 5.5 Designers.
Stackable, insulated stainless steel Espresso and Lungo cups have the shape and colour of the Nespresso Grand Cru coffees. Lively stirrers perfectly match the shape of Nespresso sugar sticks. The PIXIE Target wall-mounted capsule dispenser evokes the circular grooves of a Nespresso capsule when viewed from above. The PIXIE Sleeve dispenser is a durable aluminium version of the Nespresso capsule sleeves.
Citiz Collection: versatile retro-modern style with urban flair
Inspired by urban design, the Citiz Collection was developed by designer Antoine Cahen and his studio Les Ateliers du Nord, who have worked with Nespresso to create its iconic machines for some 25 years.
The Citiz Collection was the first accessories line that was developed and launched in conjunction with its corresponding machine.
Cahen paired the streamlined, ergonomic forms and rhythmic, tactile patterns throughout the range with innovative materials and high craftsmanship. Hand-blown, double walled glasses offer insulation and durability while staging the coffee they hold. Fine bone china bowls repeat the lines of the glasses with a refinement and texture particular to the material. Meanwhile, the clever modularity of the Citiz Collection finds ultimate expression through its slate-coloured melamine trays, whose circular indentations are designed to fit all diameters present in the range.
“We used melamine in this collection, which is closely related to bakelite, an iconic material often used in mid-century modernist design,” said Antoine Cahen. “This gives the collection a decidedly retro-modern feel.”
U Collection: smart modularity and convenience in sleek design
“The U is our most recent baby. Modularity and a pure aesthetic are the hallmarks of this machine, and the accessories were designed to reflect this in their form and function. The entire project was great fun,” commented Antoine Cahen.
Echoing the versatility of the U machine’s magnetic cup support and adjustable water tank, Cahen created an innovative tray with two stackable magnetic dispensers that can be joined to the machine according to preference. Cahen also updated the iconic Totem capsule dispenser, giving it a light-hearted handle and a smooth, white melamine base that can be used with or without the dispenser tower.
Glass Collection: essential minimalism offering ultimate transparency
Following U’s clean-lined simplicity, Cahen also gave the Nespresso Glass Collection a recent facelift.
“When we first conceived the line some ten years ago, we were inspired by the small glasses that are often used in cafés in Spain,” explained Cahen. “We gave the glass a handle, and an iconic form was born,” he continued. “The new Glass Collection is the result of an evolution of this original design. While the range renovation maintains the basic shape of the glass, we have refined it, making it even more pure.”
The pattern of the glass cup handles is repeated on the tactile grip area on the new, sleek Recipe glass, while the elongated shape of the new Recipe spoon is like a glass stirring rod – in stainless steel. Using melamine resin for the saucers not only lends the range Glass Collection a retro feel; it allowed the designer to use two different colours for the interior and exterior, adding a dynamic and playful element to the minimalist range.
As part of a recent collaboration between Nespresso and ECAL (University of Art and Design Lausanne), design students were given the task of developing a playful accessory to complement the Glass Collection. The result is the capsule Bonbonnière, whose iconic form in clear glass can be positioned two ways: vertically, like a bowl, or angled, like a candy jar.
Sharing a vision with the world of international design
Especially since the first Nespresso Design Contest in 2005, Nespresso has made its collaboration with designers and other creative talents more visible.
Collaborators on Nespresso products have included Javier Mariscal, Werner Jeker, Antoine Cahen, Olivier Gagnère, Konstantin Grcic, Alexis Georgacopoulos, Christian Ghion, Olivia & Andrée Putman, Big Game, Onze Dixième, Olivia Giacobetti and 5.5 Designers.
Through special projects, events and competitions, Nespresso continually reinforces its bonds with the greater design community, including art and design schools.
