Yanko Design » Luxury

It’s Cold Gin Time Again

Chris Burns — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:50:17 +0000

Designers from around the world have been asked to create the perfect (and I’d say wildest) martini glass for Bombay Sapphire. You might recognize a couple of these folks. And check it out: Bombay Sapphire has reached out to you, the design-concious and intelligent readers of Yanko Design to vote for your favorite. You wanted the best, YOU GOT THE BEST.

BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® Asks Yanko Design Readers to Vote
Have your say and be entered into the draw to win

To celebrate design week in the cocktail capital of the world, the Bombay Sapphire Foundation will be announcing the winner of this year’s global Designer Glass Competition and it wants you to help decide who is awarded this grand prize.

By voting for your favourite glass, you could be one of ten lucky readers chosen to win a copy of ‘A Most Elegant Partnership’, a book by BOMBAY SAPPHIRE that charts the evolution of the martini cocktail and its glass, and a bottle of BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin.

Neat, huh? Below are the entrants to this martinitastic design contest with each of their names and respective countries of origin. Be sure to visit the Bombay Sapphire Foundation Designer Glass Competition Website and vote away! -Note, you’ll have to go through a short “be of age” thing at the beginning, but it’s short.

Designer: Various Designers for Bombay Sapphire

Martini Ice Cold – LOY KAI YI TIFFANY, SINGAPORE

Close Glass – NATHAN STUDER, SWITZERLAND

Globe – NATHAN STUDER, SWITZERLAND

Jewel – MICHAEL KARLSSON, SWEDEN

Liquid Sapphire – BRUNO EVERLING, GERMANY

Moonlight – GIUSEPPE CELENTANO, ITALY

Sensual Paradise – GIUSEPPE CELENTANO, ITALY

Fulfilled – OLA DABROWSKA AND ADAM GROCH, POLAND

Comet – EKARIN KHUNAPINYA, THAILAND

Plate, Spoon And Glass, All In One Hand

Radhika Seth — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:00:52 +0000

Dinner parties and official gatherings are a time to mingle and do some serious networking. In such situations many of us (greedy/hungry) people have to give the yummy hors d’oeuvres and appetizers a miss, so that we don’t come across as awkward and messy. You know the scene: glass of wine in one hand and a plate full of goodies in the other! Mantara is the ideal solution for such social situations. It looks stylish and has a groove to hold your wine glass, a niche to secure the spoon/fork and the dish holds the appropriate proportion of food. Keep it all in one hand and let the other do the flirting!

Designer: Gabriel Contino

Sands Of Time

Radhika Seth — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:00:30 +0000

Besides the obvious, another purpose of a wall clock is to add a sense of identity to the wall that it hangs from. Sand as a metaphor for time is slipping through our hands and we can’t turn back the clock! This digitalized version reflects this sentiment and features two modes: night and day. As Natalia explains, “The main idea lies in the mechanism of the Sand Glass Clock: the lost time – at the bottom, future – on top.”

So what do you think….can you keep up with the pace of TIME?

Designer: Natalia Romanova

Bombay Sapphire Jewel Glass

Chris Burns — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:01:37 +0000

It’s cold gin time again. And this time, you know it’s for real. William f Boujon has for you exactly what your distinguished hand desires for this exquisite moment. A glass, a cocktail, a fancy jewel. These are the words of Boujon’s Pampille Glass, a conceptual glass made for the discerning eyes of Bombay Sapphire. It’s not yet reached the production phase, and may never reach your lips unless your lips are let loose below. Alcohol posting a plus.

It seems a bit unreasonable until you consider the human. The human stands on two legs. The human cannot stand up vertical without the brain of the human. The same is true of this glass. It can sit down just fine, but without the hand of its master.

Lay it flat, or pick it up, allow the blue glass to carry your hand.

Don’t drink too quickly. Be fabulous.

Designer: William f Boujon

Flaming Auto Daydream

Chris Burns — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:01:47 +0000

Bora Kim uses my favorite first step to create this automobile from the heavens: sketching. Take a look below to see Kim’s amazing illustration skills. This auto is inspired by the light that enters a room through an open door. From Kim’s mind: “darkness and desire, eternal sunshine, the road to realization, and collision of senses.” What kind of mystical nightride could this possibly be?

Behold the “Burning Freedom.” The outer shell is made of transparent and semi-transparent pieces. Each piece is plain white while at rest, a plethora of colors when utilized or shined upon by passing lights.

Kim’s motto is “true freedom comes from within.”

Designer: Bora Kim

Icy Auto Fantasy

Chris Burns — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:02:24 +0000

The muscle of the future is made of clouds. Clouds and sharp edges. Shawn Deutchman presents this concept car, the “Cerulian;” a pillow fantasy on the inside, protection on the outside. It seems to take those two simple concepts, comfort and protection, very basic elements of all modern autos, and takes them to a strange extreme. The Cerulian is based on 1970’s muscle cars, virtual reality, and the selling of the founding principal of the proposed manufacturer of the car; Opel: to build and sell dreams.

Check out this part of the original description: “Its cloud soft interior offers a personal guide to the avenues of the virtual world, while the proposal’s fractal exterior is simultaneously reflecting and revealing.”

Strange stuff! I wonder if it has a viewscreen like the USS Enterprise?

Designer: Shawn Deutchman

Ferrari Joins London

Chris Burns — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:21:17 +0000

Perhaps you’ve been? London is a home to many, many fine shops, quite a few of them dedicated to one single brand. Lots of them are the kind of brand that has a couple shops and that’s it! Ferrari. What do you think of when you think of this brand? Exclusivity? The patented red + yellow? Crazy conceptual works? Better wear sunglasses in here.

Made by the lovely folks at Massimo Iosa Ghini. This is the London Ferrari Store. Surely your eyes and pocketbooks will be taken hostage. Yellow bands! Each different area of the store is a slightly different concept, with features like transparent glass floors and the lacquered finish of walls to tie the whole experience into one single Italian fantasy.

Designer: Massimo Iosa Ghini

PURISME Bracelet: The Black Diamond

Long Tran — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:49:08 +0000

Our friends at PURISME are at it again with their latest offering – a Bracelet made of carbon fiber. If you’re a regular reader, you know YD LOVES carbon fiber. We’ve always been a huge fan of PURISME’s products – even if it is pricey but luxury this exquisite is on par with precious stones and metals. After all diamonds and carbon fiber are made of the same stuff. The bracelet is high-tech, rich and timeless. I’ve always loved the idea of carbon fiber jewelry. It sparkles, it’s incredibly lightweight yet stronger than steel. Stay glued for more info.

Designer: PURISME

Eames Select Molded Plywood Chair

Long Tran — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:04:59 +0000

Herman Miller is providing its customers with an exclusive program intended to enrich their connection to the world’s most renowned product designs. Called Herman Miller Select, the program offers an opportunity to own a limited edition product released once a year with a distinct characteristic for collector appeal.

The company’s first Select product release will include the Eames(R) Molded Plywood Lounge Chair, fashioned with a luscious walnut veneer and refined leather hairhide upholstered seat and back. Gregg Vander Kooi, manager of Herman Miller’s Classics, notes that the Select program was born out of the increasing demand from collectors for classic products with unique enhancements.

“Charles and Ray Eames often experimented with different finishes and materials for their designs. This version of the chair was offered in the 50’s and 60’s and we thought this would be a great way to allow our customers to own a similar share of design history.”

If you want one you better act fast! Only 500 chairs will be available for this inaugural year from the company’s global network of dealerships and retailers. Each piece sold will be numbered for authenticity and packaged with a signed and numbered print of the Eames Molded Plywood Lounge Chair by Nick Merrick of the famed Hedrich Blessing studio.

Designer: Herman Miller [ Buy It Here ]

Too Soon? Seemingly Recession-Proof Aston Martin Presents the Luxury “One-77″

Chris Burns — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:36:49 +0000

Literally hand-crafted features, production of only 77 units (that’s 77 cars made, ever,) and cost around a couple million dollars. Is this for real? Aston Martin creates a designer dream-car that defies the imagination of the middle class and acts as a masthead for the company:

“all [the] beauty we could bring to a car.”

Aston Martin says this is no mere car, but ‘possibly the world’s most desirable automotive art form’:

Marek Reichmann and his design team have sculpted the One-77 so that it is still instantly recognisably an Aston Martin, but with hints of a new design language.

The significance of the One-77 name, which won’t be used for production cars, is that Aston intends to build no more than 77 cars. The exact number is believed to have been chosen because of CEO Ulrich Bez’s belief in ‘lucky 7’. Car assembly is likely to be at Gaydon, though the V12 engine will come from Aston’s dedicated engine facility in Cologne.

Aston wants to show the car to potential customers by the end of the year, with the potential for the first production cars to roll out of Gaydon by the end of 2009.

Can we expect our rapper-friends to be holding one of these in their pocket(s)? What about our politicians and TV personalities? What kind of person buys a car like this? Investors? Perhaps the same people who buy astronomically expensive art pieces where the pricetag is the artwork?

If you’re looking to be one of the lucky (and rich) buyers of the Aston Martin One-77, you may already be too late. Aston claims that over 100 wealthy buyers have signed up for the One-77 supercar, though it plans to build only enough to satisfy the car’s label: 77. Amazingly, those customers have dropped a £200,000 deposit without ever having so much as seen a totally uncovered photo of the British supercar. But hey, it’s an Aston, so how ugly can it be? If you’ve got money to burn, we can think of few ways to better spend over £1 million on an automobile, especially considering that it’s rare enough to actually increase in value over time.

A car that increases in value is something I like to hear about. As a person who’s a lover of ingenuity and progress, you’d be surprised how much I support the preservation of excellent old things. If and when this car makes it off the assembly block, I suppose nothing less than it to become a collectors car. Does this car push forward the automotive industry in a way that’s healthy?

I think about the fact that I’ll never see one in person, much less be able to own or drive one.

What do you think?

1. Is this a slap in our recessing face?

2. Or is it a great day for the automotive industry?

And, most importantly I think: as some of you mentioned in a possibly related post, [should we really be designing the perfect form for a product that should be on it's way out?]

Designer: Marek Reichmann + design team at Aston Martin