Olivier Rousteing Discusses His Collaboration With Johnnie Walker
Where whisky meets haute couture, renowned French designer and creative director Olivier Rousteing of Balmain has teamed up with luxury Scotch whisky brand Johnnie Walker in a high-fashion collaboration where artistry collides. Marking the debut cultural partnership as part of the new Johnnie Walker Vault platform, this project is part of a wider initiative that combines bespoke blends, luxurious experiences and collaborations with cultural icons all under one visionary banner.
The project, titled Couture Expression, features a limited-edition collection of four seasonal whisky blends: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter that have been crafted by Johnnie Walker Master Blender Dr. Emma Walker along with Rousteing himself. Of course, he's drawn inspiration from his world of haute couture with each blend representing a unique sensory journey tied to the designer's connections with each season.
Developed over 12 months in a private 'atelier' beneath Johnnie Walker Princes Street in Edinburgh, the whiskies share a rare and luxurious core, including ghost whiskies from Brora and Port Dundas and these have been layered with selections from the Vault's 500 rare, aged, and ghost whiskies.
Johnnie Walker Vault x Olivier Rousteing Couture Expression
'Pushing boundaries through blending artistry has always been at the heart of my work, and opening the doors of the Johnnie Walker Vault to welcome such a progressive, creative talent of Olivier's magnitude has been something that will stay with me forever.' says Master Blender, Dr. Emma Walker. She continues, 'Olivier brought an emotional language to the blending creation, and we worked together to explore what whisky can express - technically, sensorially and artistically. We deliberately chose to use the same whiskies across several of the seasons, playing with proportions, textures and seasonal notes to create four distinct expressions of whiskies'
The artistry doesn't stop at the whisky, and in true style, each expression is housed in a square crystal decanter handcrafted by artisans from Baccarat; its shape an ode to the bottle first created by Alexander Walker in the 1800s and topped with a sculptural wing stopper channeling the Johnnie Walker 'Keep Walking' ethos which Olivier reinterprets as a phoenix from the flames.
Ahead of tonight's Met Gala, where Rousteing will debut his red-carpet wears, after all, he's no stranger to bold, glamorous looks, the designer discusses this latest collaboration, the creative process behind the Couture Expression, and the intersection of fashion and whisky craftsmanship.
Olivier Rousteing: Growing up, I remember both my father and grandfather drinking Johnnie Walker by the fireplace at home. It was a beautiful place in a forested landscape, but very cold. Working on Johnnie Walker Vault has resonated so much with me and made me realise how blending whisky is no different in love and craft to my own passion for fashion and couture. Since the beginning of the century, Johnnie Walker has created a strong heritage of excellence, something I appreciate given the very personal and emotional aspect of my own work.
Johnnie Walker Vault x Olivier Rousteing Couture Expression
OR: From the go, I found myself sketching out ideas of how the bottle could look. The team at Johnnie Walker brought me a beautiful cubic form bottle which Alexander Walker, son of John Walker, used in the early days of the brand. I think it's pretty magic to take this visual silhouette from back then as our starting point, and once we thought of working with Baccarat, we knew such a form fashioned in fine crystal was going to create something pretty couture and iconic. I couldn't resist dressing the bottles, draping pieces of fabric around them, which sparked the concept of interpreting them in a metallic sheen. Moving onto the stopper was when it truly took flight. John Walker broke boundaries which were anchored in the past, but always looking to the future, and given their slogan is 'keep walking', I thought let's just keep walking until we fly, imagining the sense of freedom a bird must feel. Having been badly burned myself a few years ago, it felt like a phoenix rising from ashes, so the wings that envelope the stopper are really symbolic on so many levels.
I was a bit star struck meeting Dr Emma Walker. I'm very shy and she's the one with a seismic knowledge of alcohol and whisky. I felt like her apprentice as she held my hand and took me into her world, sharing the extraordinary process of creating a new blend, like an orchestral symphony and tweaking all the different instruments. The beauty of this collaboration was how we worked together and our symbiotic passions, and all the back and forth travelling between Scotland and London.
OR: Quite a bit of Scottish! Her precision is next level. She works like an artist come mathematician to achieve the most incredible blends. There were so many parallels between us, you know, I'm a bit like that in fashion, being a bit of an architect. At the same time, I'm so obsessed with fabric and the minutiae of design. The world of spirits is such a balancing act of dosing and emotion, tasting and blending. So fascinating to see how different blends conjure different emotions. Now when I taste anything I have this hyper awareness of emotions, not dissimilar to how I look at fashion.
OR: Fall, which is the gold one, is like my baby as it's the first we created, evoking crisp mornings with smoke, spice, and tonka. This blend benefits from the tension that comes from ingredients that aren't really supposed to work but do. One of the whiskies has an old Port Ellen in the blend which is really special. The second one I love is the winter because it again comes back to smell, evoking to early memories. It's the one in a black bottle, very smokey with a more intense blend. Anyone who's not a connoisseur may think it's very strong, but I wanted an emphasized flavor on this one, which I think feels more empowering. Summer, in the silver bottle, is a bit fruitier, and conjures a lightness you'd associate with an endless, sun-kissed summer. Spring, the rose gold one, is more about a celebration of renewal and transformation. There's brightness, optimism, hopefulness. When spring approaches, you're just like, okay, the weathers lifting, the flowers are coming up, so the blend is fresher.
OR: If there's one that resonates most, I'd say maybe the winter one. It's tough, there's power, a lot of strength.
OR: I've worked for so long on an incredible outfit that you will see me presenting on the red carpet. It's going to be a big weekend where I wake up in a couple of years thinking 'wow, we made it. We did it.' The Met is so historic, being such a great part of pop culture. So, it's going to be a wild moment for me, particularly with this year's theme, 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.
Johnnie Walker Vault x Olivier Rousteing Couture Expression
Johnnie Walker Vault x Olivier Rousteing Couture Expression will pre-launch at Harrods from today, including the full collection of decanters numbered '1'. The collection launches globally from the 26th of May with only 25 bottles of each season available worldwide.
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