Veuve Clicquot's 2012 vintage, La Grande Dame, is hitting shelves worldwide this month, but the signature yellow label has a different look to it this season. The new limited-edition design is a collaboration between the French champagne house and avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama.
Both the cuvée’s case and bottle are adorned with Kusama’s signature polka dots rearranged as champagne bubbles, with an additional flower motif on the case reminiscent of her ‘Flowers that Bloom at Midnight’ series. In the face of a global pandemic when there seems to be few reasons to celebrate, Kusama’s cheerful interpretation of the vintage champagne evokes joy and optimism in an otherwise arduous period.
As a fiercely determined and unconstrained visionary, Kusama shares a few similarities with Veuve Clicquot’s ‘Grande Dame’, who took over her husband’s champagne house in 1805 when she was widowed at the age of 27. Though it was unheard of for a woman to run such a business in her era, Madame Clicquot pioneered a new technique for producing champagne and re-established Veuve Clicquot’s brand as we know it today. The two women are separated by nearly two centuries, but their eccentricity and determination to establish themselves and their visions tie them together.
The bottles will be selling for ¥25,740 each starting from September 23, and a pop-up shop will be set up at Isetan Shinjuku from September 23 to 29. There will also be a special sculpture available upon request, created by Kusama to wrap around the La Grande Dame bottle. There are only 100 of the sculptures (the price has yet to be announced), which are hand-painted and titled ‘My Heart That Blooms in the Darkness of Night’.
Looking for a more affordable Yayoi Kusama experience? Check out her latest exhibition featuring never-before-seen works, including a new infinity room.
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