Ker-Chin-Chin

Wine collectors will already regard their cellars as a gallery of fine taste equal to any art collection, however collectors may want to keep Dom Pérignon’s 2003 Rosé Vintage above ground. The prestigious champagne house has invited Jeff Koons to produce a limited edition collaboration package that includes a scaled down version of his 2008 sculpture Balloon Venus, inspired by the ancient fertility statue Venus of Willendorf. The voluptuous vessel, exaggerated by Koons’s trademark inflatable aesthetic is anything but understated and the same can be said for its price tag – at $20,000 this is Dom Pérignon’s most expensive collaboration to date, after David Lynch, Andy Warhol (A Toast To Pop, July 2010), Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Newson. The iconic bottle’s label and foiling mirrors that of its presentation box in metallic majenta – a nod to its rosé interior.

 

   Balloon Venus, Dom Pérignon 2003 Rosé Vintage

This is not of course Koons’s first foray into the cellar – in 2010 Baroness Philippine de Rothschild continued the annual tradition since 1945 at the winery of Baron Philippe de Rothschild to commission an artist to design the label for its Château Mouton Rothschild bottles. Koons joined Picasso, Dali, Freud, Bacon and Warhol in this exclusive club with a reworking of the classical fresco image from Pompeii of yet another Venus - the House of the Venus Marina III - superimposed with an infantile silver line drawing of a sun and sailing boat. Château Mouton Rothschild 2010 remains one of the most expensive of the Moutons from the winery’s vintage from Pauillac over the last decade and is sought after by wine and art connoisseurs alike.

 

This latest luxury association with an art world grandee is somewhat of a first with regards to its price bracket, inevitably posing the question: is Dom Pérignon’s 2003 Rosé Vintage the most expensive champagne in one’s cellar or is Balloon Venus the most accessible Jeff Koons one can collect? Whatever camp it lies, Dom Pérignon affirms the high-culture-formula to be much more than a trend in recent years but an essential staple in a brand’s heritage and a profitable identity strategy that justifies larger than life price tags, and in this instance, larger than life lifestyles. For when money is no object, why not have one Balloon Venus in the cellar and the other on display upstairs. Chin-chin to the best of both worlds. 

To find out more about Koons’s luxury lifestyle collaborations from this year read Fine Dining - a commission by French porcelain manufacturer Bernardaud to celebrate their 150th Anniversary with a collection of plates for L’Art de la Table.

Visit Dom Pérignon for more details on this year's limited edition Balloon Venus release due in September.

10 Ideas

My annual Christmas gift guide is back for another year and there's no better day than 10th December to drop my ten gift ideas that will get you some culture points under the tree this Holiday season. Taken from the worlds of art and design over the year from both my twitter and pinterest boards as well as this very blog, here's my curated countdown to the big two-five. Merry shopping to one and all...

1. Crème de la crème 

Contemporary artist, Kenny Scharf's Squirt character explodes onto this year's annual philanthropic art customisation of several product lines at Kiehl's

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2. Cellar envy

Power of Creation - limited edition 750ml from 2003 - by David Lynch for Dom Perignon

3. Ladies who lunch

Prêt-à-porter versus prêt-à-manger - Saco de Papel by ADAISM

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4. Men who munch

Something to put inside your missus's lunch bag - Band of Outsiders cookie cutters at Neiman Marcus X Target Holiday24   

5. Smooth operator
Hand-painted tortoiseshell case for iPhone 5 at Case-Mate

6. That's amore

My favourite childhood Christmas treats - Amaretti Di Saronno at I Camisa & Son

7. Globetrotting gin

Heritage tipple from British eccentric, Wing Commander 'Monty' Collins via India and Germany's Black Forest - Monkey 47 Dry Gin available at Manufactum

8. Diamond Queen

Stencil or thread to connect all sixty dots to create a silhouette of Queen Elizabeth II  - Queen's Head Stencil, limited edition of 100 by Studio Velardi

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9. Trompe l'oeil tablet

2012's brand comeback kid gets tech-appeal with this iPad case from Kenzo

10. Plastic Fantastic
Kartell - The Culture of Plastics at Taschen

A Toast To Pop

With his paintings of celebrities and icons of the Sixties, Andy Warhol created a buzz around him at his creative headquarters The Factory in Midtown, Manhattan and with any buzz there has to be bubbly. So it comes as no surprise that the world's most prestigious Champagne has decided to honour Warhol with a series of limited edition bottles in a series of colourways that befits the artist's painting palette as I'm sure it would his taste palette were he alive today. Dom Pérignon is not foreign to creative collaborations in recent years - Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Newson have worked with the notorious Champagne house on a number of designs that have explored the brand's simple, yet iconic, bottle and label. 
Dom Pérignon brilliantly toasts the artist who has made Popular Culture what it is today. Leave the cans of Campbells at home and raise your glass in style... Salute!