Champagne Cooler With Branches To Hold The Bubbly. The Enchanting Tree for Perrier Jouet Champagne by Tord Boontje.

As part of its artistic heritage, Perrier-Jouët continues its tradition of supporting and collaborating with artists and designers. This year the brand unveiled "The Enchanting Tree", a creation that reinvents the gesture of champagne.



Six participants can pluck a flute of Perrier-Jouët’s Belle Epoque cuvee from the tree designed by Tord Boontje. At its base, an ice bucket preserves the champagne’s coolness. Perrier-Jouët and Tord Boontje collaboration is rooted in a shared appreciation of Nature, Art Nouveau & craftsmanship.



Inspired by Nature as an inexhaustible source of inspiration, the designer has reinterpreted nature light-heartedly to create a fairytale in honour of spring, with floral forms flowing through a golden hand-worked tree.




With his hand-worked metal branches, the leaves soldered one by one, the anemones lacquered in white; Tord Boontje has reinvented the tasting ritual to create a decidedly Perrier-Jouët moment.





In 1902, a spray of Japanese anemones designed by Emile Gallé heralded the emergence of an artistic movement, Art Nouveau, symbolic of a yearning to which Perrier-Jouët has always remained true:


Inspired by those iconic swirling anemones, Tord Boontje designed a fluid and flowing tree, a plant sculpture with anemones and champagne flutes for blossoms. Suspended in mid-air in order to maintain the coolness of the champagne, they bathe the golden branches in light, reflecting the pearly drops of water on the ice bucket below. A refined and resolutely modern Perrier-Jouët creation, lending a hint of the sublime to the tasting of a Belle Epoque cuvée.



Tord Boontje, an artist born in 1968 in the Netherlands, studied industrial design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven (1986-1991) then at the Royal College of Art in London (1992-1994), before founding his own design studio in 1996 in London. He draws inspiration from nature and incessantly explores the relationship between nature and technology: the association with Perrier-Jouët was thus a marriage made in heaven. "My ideas come to me while strolling in the forest and observing the way light and nature interact" explains the designer, who refuses to link modernism and minimalism.

Perrier Jouet

photos courtesy of Perrier Jouet, The Wine Sleuth  and Cocorosa

Pop Culture Carved Crayons By Hoang Tran Will Color You Excited.

Although not the first artist to carve images from Crayola crayons, Hoang Tran of Sunnyvale, carves his in even more detailed likenesses than our other favorite Crayon carver, Diem Chau, and adds painted details. And since he is lesser known, his are actually available for purchase at an affordable price.


above: The Walter White Breaking Bad Crayon is even available with a little glass beaker

Characters from Breaking Bad, Star Wars, The Big Lebowski, Doctor Who and Game Of Thrones melt my heart. Also available are crayons carved into the characters from Futurama, Adventure Time, Disney characters and more.

Walter White Breaking Bad Crayon:



Big Lebowski Crayons:




Star Wars Crayons:












The TARDIS from Doctor Who:



Great House Sigils from Game Of Thrones:


Adventure Time characters:


Little Mermaid:


Donnie Darko:


The individual carved crayons range from $30 - $40 each and sets, like the Game Of Thrones Great House Sigils will run you $245. Custom crayons of Bride and Groom (which I just bought for a recently engaged fellow blogger) and other custom carved crayons are available upon request.

The Bride and Groom Crayons:


Wondering how to display them? A shadow box is an easy way:




Shop for them here at his etsy store

Non-etsy members can request a carved crayon by contacting Hoang via carvedcrayons@gmail.com

Vanhulsteijn Designs 9 Special Edition Japanese Lacquer and Gold Leaf Bikes for Sotheby's.

The Urushi Bicycle Project consists of 9 exclusively designed bicycles for Sotheby’s by Herman van Hulsteijn. Sotheby's approached the Dutch designer after seeing his unusual bikes on the internet with their distinctive curved frame. Herman van Hulsteijn suggested designing a tailor-made bike for them using an ancient process that had intrigued him for years.

Get A Load Of Artist Nina Mae Fowlers' Knockers.

Shoreditch-based artist Nina Mae Fowler's recent work includes these five black chalk drawings of Golden Era screen legends Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, Jean Harlow, Marlene Deitrich and Lucia Carroll complete with cast brass "knockers".

Joan (Knockers I), 2013:

detail:

Black chalk and brass, (h) 136 x (w) 94 cm
$12,400 (available through Saatchi Online)

Marilyn (Knockers II), 2013:

detail:

Black chalk and brass, (h) 108 x (w) 142 cm

Jean (Knockers III), 2013:

detail:

Black chalk and brass, (h) 120 x (w) 158 cm
$14,5000 (available through Saatchi Online)

Marlene (Knockers IV), 2013:

detail:

Black chalk and brass, (h) 106 x (w) 138 cm

Lucia (Knockers V), 2013:

detail:

Black chalk + brass, (h) 95 x (w) 152 cm
$13,500 (available through Saatchi Online)

Gallery views:


above: Marilyn (Knockers II) framed in an acrylic box viewed from an angle

In the following promotional video for her show at the COB Gallery in London, you can see a time lapse video of her drawing of Lucia Carroll come to life:


Recently named Saatchi’s one to watch and Saatchi's Best of 2013, she has also been nominated for the BP Portrait Prize, as well as being shortlisted for both the Jerwood Drawing Prize and the Young Masters Prize in 2012. Both of Fowler’s previous installations have been archived in international collections. - See more here

Nina will have a solo exhibition with Galerie Dukan in January 2014. This show will mark the opening of Galerie Dukan's new space in Leipzig, Germany.


above: Portrait of Nina Fowler by Anthony Lycett for Harper's Bazaar UK

About the artist (courtesy of Saatchi Online)
Nina Fowler was born in London in 1981. She graduated with a first in sculpture from Brighton University in 2003. In 2008, she was nominated for the BP Portrait Prize with her painting of the Royal Ballet dancer, Carlos Acosta, and in 2010 her work was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize. More recently she was shortlisted for The Young Masters Prize 2012. She has worked as archivist and assistant to John Dunbar (founder of Indica Gallery) alongside being part-time Art teacher at South Hampstead High School. Her work is admired and collected by British film, music and fashion luminaries such as John Maybury, Jude Law, Sharleen Spiteri and Caroline Issa. She is included in private and public collections in Europe and the USA and is represented in France by Galerie Dukan.

Nina Mae Fowler