Glenfiddich Explores Crypto Fashion and Art to Celebrate Cultural Mavericks

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We love when worlds collide. Be it food, music, art, or fashion, merging two creative spheres can transport brands to a whole new level and push their identity towards fresh and exciting heights. One long-standing brand that focuses on honing in on the intersection between exciting cultural realms is Glenfiddich. The most awarded Single Malt Scotch whisky company, founded in 1887, is always looking at ‘where next?’, as it is through this question we are able to achieve meaningful growth. Keen to break boundaries and push itself to new peaks, Glenfiddich recently celebrated the unveiling of its newest whisky addition to its Grand Series, the Grande Couronne. To accompany this, it launched the Grande Composition, a series of artistic collaborations across the globe, which sees a cross-cultural reimagination of the Grande Couronne’s stunning box design.

2021 has well and truly been the year for advancements and happenings in the crypto world. From Bitcoin and Ethereum to NFT’s and crypto-fashion, the last year has seen a significant surge in the production and purchase of online art. The ever-expanding worlds of blockchain technology and fashion have collided in more ways than one, with the most prominent and ground-breaking being crypto-fashion.

Glenfiddich entered a domain where a whisky brand has yet to step foot by getting digital artist, Stephanie Fung, to create a crypto-fashion collection inspired by the Filigree energized work of three of the Grande Composition artists. Fung is a London-based creative, working with digital software as her main medium. Self-taught and in the 3D field for four years, Fung’s art showcases Chinese culture as a way to celebrate her heritage. Her design aesthetic fuses modern techniques with more traditional themes, adding flashes of bright color and vivid pattern combinations, like the inspirational clothing of her rich origins.

Grande Couronne is a 26-year Single Malt Scotch whisky that has been finished in French Cognac casks, a nod to Glenfiddich’s omnipresent maverick spirit, consistently pushing the boundaries of whisky innovation. Converging with current creative spaces is something that Glenfiddich does best, and can be seen through its desire to spotlight and give back to the global arts community. Glenfiddich has shown undying support for the arts, with 2021 marking the 20th anniversary of its Artist in Residence program - an initiative that champions collaborations with breakthrough artists through a residency at the Glenfiddich distillery. Set in the idyllic Scottish highlands, the location aims to inspire creativity. The company also has an on-site gallery that allows artists’ work to live and breathe throughout the location.

A way to crown the occasion of the Grande Couronne’s release, the Grande Composition brings together a plethora of pioneering creatives, a signature aspect of Glenfiddich’s cutting-edge spirit. Glenfiddich unearths a whole host of artists from 17 countries across the globe, including South Africa, Nigeria, Poland, and Spain, challenging them to take inspiration from the Filigree aesthetic and put their twist on it, turning it into something new, celebratory, and unexpected. Thus, creating a global collection of objets d’art that marries Glenfiddich’s rich history and visual identity with local cultures through the artists’ lens - and it didn’t stop there. Glenfiddich channeled its spearheading energy even further, diving headfirst into the digital fashion realm.

For her digital collection in collaboration with Glenfiddich, Fung created three crypto-fashion garments, each one in response to one artists’ work from the Grande Composition. The selected artists, Mzukisi Mbane from South Africa, Malwina Konopacka from Poland, and David Aiu Servan Schreiber from the UK, all responded to the Grande Couronne redesign in different mediums and materials - with this, Fung had endless opportunities to play around with her creative execution. “They all have distinct styles and different backgrounds so it was beautiful to bring them together in a digital fashion lens. I wanted to retain the artist’s prints and styles but fuse them with modern tech-wear cuts while adding hints of Chinese embellishments.”

When French artist Jean-Charles Deserve partnered with Glenfiddich to create the ornamental Filigree aesthetic, he brought together two luxury worlds - French cognac and Scottish whisky. Glenfiddich shared this approach with the artists, asking them to do the same with their personal backgrounds and practice.

See how the Grande Composition came to life across the world.

Malwina Konopacka started off her practice with more of an illustration angle, however got curious as to how she could turn the 2D outcomes into 3D sculptural pieces. Eventually dabbling in ceramics, she created the OKO Collection - a series of painted vases and plates.

Heralding from Cape Town, Mzukisi Mabane is always trying to tell a story. His luxury fashion brand, Imprint ZA, uses his personal history as well as local stories to inform the elegant garments, whilst keeping its DNA malleable but strongly rooted in African heritage.

French-born, London-based artist, David Aiu Servan-Schreiber, looks to the natural world and raw elements as his biggest inspiration. Drawing on the juxtapositions in different facets of life, Servan-Schreiber aims to convey the magnificence of the Earth through his artworks.

Viennese-born artist Clemens Wolf focuses on capturing the ephemeral and irreproducible within his pieces. Working with a variety of mixed mediums, his work remains abstract, with metal becoming one of his favorites for uninhibited expression.

Starting with mostly illustrations, German designer Tilmann Trittmacher has since seen his artistic practice mesh with a more technological realm, with digital tools becoming part and parcel of his existing repertoire.

Tadej Oblak is an Amsterdam-based artist drawing inspiration from the ‘50s Pop Art movement in America. Known for its bright colors, heavy brushstrokes and iconic motifs, Oblak’s postmodernist work doesn’t cease to catch the eye.

Gary Yong aka Enforce One is one of the founding members of Cut Collective from New Zealand, specializing in curating exhibitions, interior murals, and large-scale public work. Apart from having a commercial approach with his practice, Yong works primarily as an illustrator and spray-paint artist.

Inspired by elements of Cubism and Abstract Expressionism, Alexandros Vasmoulakis plays with fragmented lines and twisted entities in his work. Challenging our perception of reality, Vasmoulakis plays with layering effects, unveiling and hiding forms through handmade wax crayons

Nigerian artist Gbolahan Ayoola is known for merging figuration and abstraction in his work using mainly earth, gold leaf, acrylic, and charcoal. Archaeology and anthropology are vital to Ayoola’s work as he uses the past to guide his practice through symbols and his biological genealogy.

Cosima Ramirez, grew up in a world surrounded by fashion with her mother running a well-known Spanish brand. Ramirez’s love of color and her keen eye for design strongly influence her practice, with her creations mirroring her vibrant personality.

Kostadin Kokalanov is one of the leading art directors in Bulgaria with an extensive portfolio spanning many international clients. However, he is also one of the very few calligraphy artists in his home country, an ancient practice teeming with skill and elegance.

Mirit Weinstock, overlaps her knowledge of different creative fields, like jewelry design, fashion, and visual art, to galvanize her practice. Her love for Japanese culture and traditional craft relocated her to Tokyo where she has been creating bodies of work in new materials and styles.

Growing up, Eltipo spent most of his time in his father’s car body shop which is where he first experimented and developed his custom painting skills. His visual ability to combine traditional craftsmanship with contemporary techniques has become his trademark style, drawing influences from tattoo culture, typography, and sport.

Glass artist, Simon Berger, is a pioneer in his field. Using a hammer as a tool to amplify rather than destruct, Berger creates faces on window panes out of cracking the glass, playing with the varying transparency and lacerations that naturally form.

Hailing from Milan, Alessandro Tomassini looks to technology, folklore, and the natural world to educate his conceptual ideas. Merging older craft-like techniques with modern ones, Tomassini pushes to create new worlds by bringing together two different realms.

Born in Bucharest, Alexandru Ciucu is a fashion designer with deep tailoring roots running in his genes. Dealing mostly with luxury and classic clothing for men, Ciucu uses his knowledge of the craft to experiment with various mediums and accessories across the fashion field.

Kenyan street artist, Bhupi Jethwa, poses questions about existence, representation, and race through his multi-disciplinary works. Widely recognized by the name WiseTwo, you can find Jethwa’s collages and large-scale murals dotted around the streets of Nairobi, as well as in over 15 countries around the world. A personal quest for the artist, he aims to dissect our connection between ancient worlds and newer ones through traditional and contemporary techniques and patterns.