First produced 80 years ago, the Moulded Plywood Elephant remains a benchmark in the work of the creative duo Charles and Ray Eames. It was while developing the legendary Plywood Chairs that the Eameses designed this iconic moulded plywood elephant. Lucia, Charles's daughter, “adopted” it as one of her favourite toys, but the truth is that the piece remains relevant and inspiring to this day. Llisa Demetrios, Charles and Ray's granddaughter and chief curator of the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, grew up with the elephant and considers it one of the pieces in the Eames Collection that sparks the most curiosity.

"When I was growing up, I often wondered why there weren’t more elephants. I was told that moulding the plywood for the elephant was much more difficult than for the Eames Lounge Chair. My mother, Lucia Eames, was thrilled when Vitra developed a way to produce 1000 pieces in natural maple and 1000 in red maple, to mark Charles’s centenary in 2007," recalls Llisa Demetrios.

Llisa remembers the elephant both at home and in her grandparents' studio in Los Angeles. Charles and Ray always had a huge passion for toys, and particularly for elephants. It's no coincidence that the duo's estate includes more than 200 boxes of toys, which Charles considered as a starting point for bigger ideas.

"Toys are not so innocent as they seem. Toys and games are the preludes to serious ideas." – Charles Eames