Iittala Kastehelmi

The Kastehelmi range of glassware (Kastehelmi translated from Finnish is “dew pearl”) is one of the most well know glassware from Iittala in Finland. The decoration of these glassware looks like there would be small, different sized pearls rhythmically receding from the center.

The designer of Kastehelmi is Oiva Toikka, very well know Finnish glass artist. The actual story of the design process is more practical than the fragile name and outlook gives to understand. The idea of using droplets of glass as decoration came to Toikka from the technical challenge: he was thinking of the ways of covering the joint marks left on the surface of pressed glass pieces by the production process. For the designer’s sake it must be said, that the manufacturing method would have needed only one pearl, but it was by aesthetic reasons the designer added full load of pearls to the mold.

This design was one of the first works Oiva Toikka did for the famous Nuutajärvi glass factory. Kastehelmi series was announced in 1964, and it was instantly a huge success. The series was in production constantly until 1988, but in 2010, Iittala started the Kastehelmi production again, bringing the most popular pieces again on the market.

Kastehelmi series includes plates, bowls, small mugs and coasters; plates in five different size and bowls in three. Additional to the transparent glass Kastehelmi has been made in grey, red, brown, turquoise, olive green and emerald. New colors introduced in 2010 are light blue and apple green.

During its production years Kastehelmi become so popular, that copies of it were introduced by other manufacturers. One factory in England developed the copy of Kastehelmi and tried to get a monopoly for selling this product in England. It was discover that their model was an exact match of the original Kastehelmi. There was a mistake in the original plate - two of the pearls were connected to each other – and the same was in the English copy. The English manufacturer was accused of the plagiarism and they had to withdraw their products from market.