Packaging as culture and history

Behind the Scenes at the Brand Museum

Remember the very first time you heard the sound of snap, crackle and pop; spread Marmite on your toast; unwrapped a Yo-Yo; or discovered the difference between ordinary colas and the real thing? That initial taste might be elusive, but you’d probably only need to see the pack, jar or bottle it came from to instantly recapture just how it felt being you at the time. Des King visits the Museum of Brands in London.

November 13, 2008

With so much current attention being focused upon packaging as waste, it’s a relief to know that one man’s rubbish is another man’s reminiscences. Thank God, or at least the capacity for human quirkiness, for Robert Opie: self-appointed archivist of the packaging industry’s best endeavours stretching back to the first arrival of brands on Victorian retail shelves. Since 1963, Opie has pretty much single-handedly been storing up examples of anything and everything from tins of Andrew’s Liver Salts to packets of Zubes throat pastilles to provide a unique testament to the role played by packaging in shaping consumer culture. ...cont´d

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