In 2006, I was engaged by Canadian Branding company Brandever, to create a wine label for a French winery wishing to extend their vines into the North American market. I really loved working on this project, not only because I’m an old soak; but I loved what I produced even though the job was disappointingly scotched.
The initial brief demanded that there be a Fin de Siecle or Belle Epoque feel and Van Gogh’s work appeared in supplied examples. However, being an admirer of Mucha’s work, I presented a more Art Nouveau direction which was accepted by the client. The initial sketches were rough but were made to show my response to the brief.
The Ribbon Lady sketch was picked out to be developed into a more detailed sketch. I wanted to have a classically beautiful Grecian look to the character and found a willing model amongst friends in the local Alliance Française one Saturday morning. I discovered that the position of the arm and hand in my first sketch [drawn from imagination] was unachievable in reality and adjusted to suit. The cascading hair is a reference of sorts to Tamara de Lempicka’s signature style and I worked the hair into the wine’s name. A nice touch was that I was encouraged to break the boundaries of the label and allow ribbons of hair to flow out. The excess forms would be achieved with fancy die-cutting at the printing stage.
Sadly, though, somewhere the bottle went and this wasn’t to be. The job evaporated like a mirage in a dry Arizona town, leaving me thirsty for more…
