Pretty Pretty Princess House - Nouveau by Arcoflam (France)

I remember, when I was a kid, before we moved out to the farm, the circle that we lived on was awash with home parties.  It was the mid 70's and it was all the rage.  Tupperware parties, Home Interior parties, and Princess House parties.

Many of the women on the street populated their homes with products from these parties....  Thus, many of the interiors of the homes on the street looked disturbingly similar.   I remember the Princess House parties most vividly, because there was a lot of crystal and bone china, so children were NOT allowed int he room amongst the breakables.  Mom's formal stemware (Esprite) came from Princess House, as did her frosted clematis dessert plates (Fantasia).   She even had a English bone china coffee pot and to cups (Windsor Rose).

Unlike Pampered Chef and some other companies that sell via the same "home party" formula, Princess House did not manufacture their own products, they would contract with companies to make products for them.  This is evidenced by the tea pot I mentioned.  The bottom was marked "Hammersley and Co.", a well known English bone china manufacturer who was also contracted by Tiffany & Co., on occasion, to make pieces for them.

The reason for all this background on Princess House is that I recently found a piece of "Corningware" produced for said "house of Princessness", though I do not know what the time frame of availability was, because we had moved to the farm in 1977 and Mom stopped having parties for such things.   I only found out about it's existence back in 2007 when I began hunting down vintage Corningware pieces in thrift stores.

The cooking line was called Nouveau, though technically, there was nothing "New" about it, except maybe the shape and the fact that it came from France instead of Corning Consumer Products Division in the United States.

It was produced by ARC (who also make Luminarc glassware and Arcoroc dinnerware) in France under the Arcoflam name, then shipped back to the U.S. to be sold at Princess House parties.  The shape is sort of a faceted round and the handles attach differently than original or current Corningware/Pyrosil/Pyroflam.  There is a large square "lug" on one end used for handle attachment.

Here is a picture of the handle used on Nouveau....

You place the handle over the lug and squeeze the trigger.

If you look really close, you can see the Arcoflam name on the clamping trigger.

To release the handle, you simply press the button on the side of the handle.

The formula for Nouveau is slightly different from Vintage Corningware.  It's still a Ceramic Glass (Vitro-Ceramic), but the formulation is more inline with what is currently used on smooth cook tops, both radiant and induction.  But for all intents and purposes, regardless of who is licensing what from whom and where the who is manufacturing under which product name and how it's sold....  it's still "Corningware". 

Where is your Corningware??
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