Alcohol brands tap world of art to woo younger drinkers
Dom Perignon hosted a party at the Brant Foundation in New York City's East Village, thousands of miles from its home in the Champagne region of France. At the party, which celebrated Dom Perignon's partnership with the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, actresses Zoe Kravitz and Natasha Lyonne, model Evan Mock and Raul Lopez, the designer of the subversive Luar fashion label, sipped Dom as they swayed to music from the Mudd Club habitue DJ Justin Strauss.
The Basquiat painting «In Italian,» a neo-expressionist work filled with gestural scribbles and stark images-faces, coins, dark creatures and cryptic words like «teeth» and «crown of thorns»-hung on one wall. Throughout the room were bottles of a limited-edition release culled from a 2015 Dom Perignon vintage with labels that mirrored Basquiat motifs, including his signature crown in yellow overlaid in a way to suggest a connection between the artist's work and Dom Perignon's own shield-shaped tag.
«I think people are looking for more than just the experience of consuming,» said Jacques Giraco, MD at Dom Perignon, speaking of his company's decision to evoke the image of an artist synonymous with the gritty downtown scene in 1980s New York. «It becomes a total experience. It conjures emotion, and that creates a stronger link with the brand.»
The flirtation of art and alcohol isn't new-think Andy Warhol and Absolut vodka in the 1980s-but it makes a lot of sense today, when many studies indicate that Gen Z is drinking less alcohol than previous generations. Moreover,
