Chanel Wine With Karl Lagerfeld Label Goes Perfectly With His Orrefors Wine Glasses.

above: Wine label and Wine glasses designed by Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel.

Back in October, fashion and wine blogs were sharing the news that Chanel Creative Director Karl Lagerfeld was illustrating a wine label, expanding his already enormous repertoire as a legendary fashion guru, film director, photographer, product designer and more. As a matter of fact, he recently designed a selection of glassware for Orrefors, which includes... you guessed it, wine glasses.


above image of Karl Lagerfeld courtesy of Celotto/Getty

Karl Lagerfeld for Château Rauzan-Ségla

The winery, Château Rauzan-Ségla, whose exterior was the subject of Karl's illustration for the label, was founded in 1661 by Pierre de Rauzan and was acquired by CHANEL in 1994.


above: Château Rauzan-Ségla, situated in the heart of the Margaux appellation

On its 350th Anniversary and to celebrate the exceptional quality of the 2009 vintage Château Rauzan-Ségla is proud to announce a very special – one time only – collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld. To honor these two milestones (the anniversary and exceptional vintage), Lagerfeld has brought his iconic drawing style to the label with a rendering of the Château Rauzan-Ségla.






Tasting Notes and Ratings for 2009 Rauzan-Ségla, Margaux:

• 94-96 points Wine Enthusiast: "Big tannins here, very dry, but the fruit seems rich enough to support it. It is finely structured, very dense, made for the long haul."

• 93-96 points Wine Spectator: "Shows a lovely concentration of currant and blackberry. Hints of vanilla follow through to a full body, with layers of ripe and pretty fruit to this. Very fruit-forward..."

• 92-95 points Robert Parker: "...This large estate appears to have produced their greatest wine since the 1986. The alcohols came in at 13.9%, and the wine reveals extraordinary density, power, and richness as well as explosive fruit, and terrific acidity, intensity, and power. Yet it tastes like a crisp, delicate Margaux. Yields were 40 hectoliters per hectare. This outstanding 2009 should age nicely for 35-40+ years."

• 90-93 points Tanzer's IWC: "Ruby red. Perfumed aromas of currant, spices and flowers show an intriguing candied quality. Light and lively on the palate, with suave, peppery dark berry and mineral flavors lifted by a spicy element on the back. Finishes long and pure, with noteworthy inner-mouth energy and fragrance. This wine's very polished tannins make it deceptively delicious to taste today, like so many 2009s.

• 94-96 points - Wine Cellar Insider: The 2009 Rauzan Segla is deep ruby. The perfume offers jammy blackberry, fudge, fennel, earth, spice, and floral notes. Full bodied with a rich texture, round tannins, and structure to age, this sublime wine ends with long, pure sensations of sweet berries.

This special edition Château Rauzan-Ségla Margaux 2009 wine is being distributed by Harvey Nichols for £160. Buy it here

Karl Lagerfeld for Orrefors.


Creator, photographer, designer and editor Karl Lagerfeld likes nothing more than expanding his modes of expression. And what better way to do that than to present his first line of crystal products with Orrefors. With an insatiable curiosity, always in search of new creative experiences, this multifaceted artist has had an uncommonly rich career, during which he has developed a perfectly chiseled graphic identity. And now the clean lines and streamlined design of that universe grace this inimitable collection of glasses, bowls and vases.



In transparent, black or milky white crystal, the series unites the strict lines and contemporary elegance of Karl Lagerfeld with the exacting quality and expertise that has characterized Orrefors for over a century.

See the full collection here

Remembering Eva Zeisel 1906-2012. Her Life and Her Work.

The world lost a legend on December 30th when Eva Zeisel died at the age of 105. In honor of her passing, I am reprinting a post I wrote on her amazing life and work in April of 2010.


above: Eva Zeisel, 2009, photos courtesy of Talisman Photo

103 year old Eva Zeisel continues to amaze. The Hungarian born designer just doesn't stop. In addition to being an enormous talent, she has a life story as interesting as her work.

She was born Eva Amalia Stricker on November 13th to Alexander and Laura Polanyi Stricker. At the age of 17 she enrolled in the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts, intent on becoming a painter, but was convinced by her mother to try a trade at which she could earn money. She then began apprenticing as a potter. In 1925, she started her own pottery on her family estate. In 1927 she moved to Hamburg Germany, where she worked at Hansa Kunstkeramic for 6 months.

In 1932, she visited Russia for the first time. She worked at the Lomonosov Manufactory designing dinnerware and at the Artistic Laboratory of the Lomonosov State Porcelain Factory (the former Imperial Porcelain Factory) in Leningrad.



By 1935 she was the artistic director of the Glass and China Industries in Moscow, Russia. It was soon after, in 1936, that the talented Stricker was falsely accused of being part of a conspiracy to kill Josef Stalin and imprisoned in Russia for 16 months, 12 of which were spent in solitary confinement.

Upon her 1937 release from prison (without explanation), she was put on a train to Vienna where she was met by relatives. In 1938 she married her second husband, Hans Zeisel in England (her first marriage was to physicist Alexander Weissberg and was dissolved). Soon after marrying Zeisel, they both moved to new York.

In 1939, she created the first department of ceramic arts industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she taught until 1952.


above: Eva Zeisel in 1940 with student work at Pratt. Image courtesy of Pratt.
above image courtesy of Eva Zeisel Archives

She then went on to design iconic pieces for Chantal, Sears, Red Wing Pottery, Hall China Company, Watt Pottery, H. Heisey and more. You can still find many of her vintage pieces at the Orange Chicken Gallery.

At the impressive age of 103, she is still actively designing. She has current collections of ceramics and silk-screened prints for Klein Reid, Classic Century ceramics and One O One earthenware for Royal Stafford, the re-issued Granit collection for Design Within Reach, pens, pen holder and card holder designs for Acme, hand blown glassware collections for Gumps , glassware, aluminum and more for Nambé, exclusive China pieces for various galleries, and a furniture line, and most recently a collection of three Tibetan wool rugs for The Rug Company.



above photos courtesy of Talisman photo and the Brooklyn Museum

Eve Zeisel Glassware for Gumps:


Exclusives for the Neue gallerie:
Fine bone china Baby feeder:

Porcelain painted Icebox pitchers:


Eva Zeisel for Royal Stafford


A coffee set she designed in 1940:

One O One:


Eva Zeisel for Klein Reid:



Eva Zeisel for Nambé:




Eva Zeisel Glassware for Bombay Sapphire:


Designed in early 2001, the Centennial Set consists of six impressively scaled celebratory goblets inspired by Eva's martini glass designed exclusively for the Bombay Sapphire's promotional campaign. Individually hand-blown by master craftsmen, these elegant works of art are made of the highest quality glass.

Eva Zeisel Originals (furniture and more):





Eva Zeisel for Design Within Reach:

Granit tableware:


Eve Zeisel For The Rug Company:

Fish and Lacy X:



Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Met and the V&A. In 2005, she was awarded the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice little interview with Eva Zeisel here.

Special thanks to the Eva Zeisel forum for additional information and links.

Eva Zeisel Books, Dinnerware and More

Marc Newsom's Limited Edition Hourglasses For Ikepod.

Designer Marc Newsom first unveiled his stunning modern hourglass for Ikepod at last year's Baselworld. The hourglass was created in 2 models, the HGS20 and HGS80. Both are made of Borosilicate glass and measure 300 x 250 mm. Weighing 9.6 kg. the sand is made of stainless steel nickel nanoballs while in the HGS80, it is made of actual gold-plated nanoballs.



You'd be hard-pressed to find a more elegant way to keep track of time.

The HGS20 -the stainless steel nanonball version- will soon be available for purchase at Colette

Edible Drinking Glasses That Encourage You To Litter. Jelloware.

The folks at The Way We See The World have designed edible, flavored and naturally biodegradable gelatinous drinking cups, that when tossed on the surface of the planet, actually contain organisms that nurture the growth of grasses and plants.



Jelloware re-imagines the concept of drinking, and imparts a new experience in the way it feels, tastes, smells, moves, and is even disposed of.



The cups are made entirely out of agar agar (a gelatinous substance made from red algae) and cast in different flavors, such as lemon-basil, ginger-mint, or rosemary-beet, each specifically designed to compliment a corresponding drink.



Jelloware is meant to be thrown into the grass after it is used, as agar agar* is a seaweed extract and actually nurtures the growth of plants.



*Agar (agar agar) is used in laxatives, as vegetarian gelatin substitutes, as a thickener for soups, jellies, ice cream and other desserts, and as a clarifying agent in brewing, and for paper sizing fabrics. Chemically, agar is a polymer made up of subunits of the sugar galactose. Agar polysaccharides serve as the primary structural support for the algae's cell walls.(source: wikipedia)


above: The concept and design won them the honor of Runner Up for Structural/Sculptural Integrity in the GSS Jell-O mold competition.




THE WAY WE SEE THE WORLD is a product design consultancy comprised of Monica Bhatia, Chelsea Briganti, Ingrid Zweifel, and Leigh Ann Tucker, that pulls its lens back to take in the edges, where contexts take shape and boundaries form. We believe that design is fundamentally a creative response to the evolving challenges of the present. We are keen eyes in a world that changes with each blink, locating innovation in the space created by emerging realities.

Thanks to PSFK for bringing this to my attention and to Yanko Design for some of the additional images.