View from the Back

Duralex  is a French manufacturer of tempered glassware, founded in 1945 in La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin. The company is known for using a proprietary glass tempering process, developed by Saint-Gobain in the 1930s, which makes its products 2.5 times more resistant to mechanical shock and thermal shock than traditional glass.

The brand evokes a mix of nostalgia and pride and is a symbol of French patriotism and industrial savoir faire. Famous for designs like the Picardie and Gigogne tumblers, Duralex has faced financial difficulties but was most recently saved by a worker cooperative in July 2024 and, again, more recently by funding from the public.

How it all began

The factory in La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin was initially established in late 19th century nitially produced carboys and jars.  François Coty purchased the business in 1930 and renamed it Verreries de la Chapelle Saint-Mesmin, using the facility to manufacture his perfume bottles. 

Duralex was officially founded in 1945 and became the first company in the world to apply the tempering process to produce everyday tableware. This process, which involves rapidly cooling heated glass, makes the final product at least 2.5 times more resistant to impact and thermal shock than non-tempered glass.

The Duralex brand name is derived from the Latin motto “dura lex, sed lex” (“the law is harsh, but it is the law”).

The company’s first model, the Gigogne glass, was released in 1946 and became a staple in French canteens and bistros. The nine-faceted Picardie glass followed in 1954 and achieved immediate global success, becoming one of the most recognisable glassware designs in the world.

To make the glasses, a mix of sand, soda ash and limestone, the exact proportions of which are a closely guarded secret, is heated in a vast overhead oven to 1,400C. Glowing globs of molten glass drop into iron casts that are blasted with a flame of gas. The red-hot glass is instantly pounded into shape, sprung from the mould, snatched by metal pincers and placed on a conveyor belt.

The glass is inspected for faults. During a production run, more than a dozen samples of whatever is being made will be randomly removed and subjected to stress tests. In the quality control room, the products are heated to 150C then plunged into cold water to see if they resist a thermic shock, and dropped from the height of a kitchen counter onto a metal sheet to see if they shatter. They will be tested for stackability and then weighed and the glass thickness measured. If they pass – great –  if they fail, everything stops and the machines are recalibrated.

The company claims its glass is microwave, freezer and dishwasher-safe and will not turn cloudy or lose its colour, which is in the glass rather than on it. When they do break, Duralex glasses shatter into small pieces rather than shards, reducing the injury risk. Having owned a set of their glasses for many years I can confirm the veracity of their claims.

Duralex glasses have become iconic, appearing in films, featured in the collections of design museums like the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the MoMA in New York, and used by various celebrities, from James Bond to Real Madrid football players.

Despite its popularity, Duralex faced financial difficulties, filing for bankruptcy in 2008 and again in 2024. In January 2021, the company was acquired by the International Cookware group (later renamed La Maison française du verre), which also owns the Pyrex brand.

In November 2022, production was temporarily halted due to soaring energy prices, the firm’s largest and most worrying expense. The factory uses 360 cubic metres of gas an hour. To put this in perspective, the average French household uses under 100 cubic metres of gas a year.

In July 2024, after being placed into receivership, a significant development occurred: a proposal supported by a majority of employees to transition the company to a workers’ cooperative (SCOP) was accepted by the Commercial Court of Orléans, preserving all jobs and securing the company’s future, with support from government funding. Today, 180 of the 243 employees are “associates” in the company.

Since the company became a staff cooperative, turnover has increased by 22% and it was hoped Duralex would break even by 2027.

But the story doesn’t end there. In November 2025, the company asked the French public for money. An appeal for €5m of emergency funding to secure the immediate future of the glassworks took just five hours and 40 minutes to reach its target. Within 48 hours, the total amount pledged had topped €19m. (Note as a co-operative, the company can only accept €5m.)

Potential investors will be issued with securities that pay 8% interest over seven years but give no company voting rights. The maximum investment was set at €1,000 per head.

François Marciano, (pictured below)  director general of Duralex, said the response had astonished everyone at the company.

The €5m raised will be used to modernise the factory and develop new products. These include a partnership with the Élysée presidential palace shop to sell a set of three of its Gigogne glasses in red, white and blue, marked RF for République Française.

Even better, the appeal prompted a tsunami of orders, so many that the company is now struggling to keep up.

All images courtesy of Duralex