Donna Karan has collaborated with Beverly Hills jeweler Martin Katz to create a limited edition collector bottle for DKNY Golden Delicious. It costs one million dollars, and that appears to be the name of the bottle as well. The design was inspired by the skyline of New York City, and the proceeds — assuming there are any — will benefit Action Against Hunger.
...the flacon is made from 14-karat yellow and white gold, featuring almost 3,000 precious stones sourced from all over the world. Including a turquoise Paraiba tourmaline from Brazil, an oval cabochon sapphire from Sri Lanka, round pink diamonds from Australia, round rose cut diamonds, an oval cut ruby and a pear shape rose cut diamond, the gemstones were handplaced by Katz to form the skyline of Manhattan that is so closely associated with DKNY. The bottle, which contains the brand's new Golden Delicious fragrance and keeps its original apple shape, will be showcased across the globe before being sold to benefit the Action Against Hunger charity.
You can watch a video with Martin Katz talking about the bottle here.
(quote via news.yahoo, additional information via elle.nl, elle.fr)
Ah, with the holidays soon approaching, what do you get for the teenager who has everything? *reels back snark*
Yep.
Boy did they choose the right week to release a million dollar fragrance!
Hard to say if there *is* a right week.
I hope she gets three times the price she hopes for it; hunger charities are going to be more and more in needed, I suspect!
Call me cynical, but I kind of doubt that hunger charities are best served by projects like this. It did most certainly get DKNY and Martin Katz plenty of publicity.
Bottle’s worth?: One million dollars
Juice’s worth?: 5 dollars
Look on any sane person’s face?: Priceless
LOL!
I wonder what just the bottle is worth? That stand is just hideous.
Vulgar beyond belief.
For a real charity, give the money directly to Doctors without Borders, or UNICEF, or Red Cross.
No need to pay the middleman for this ridiculous promotion.
Sighhh… This is pretty crass and tasteless. If Donna Karan wanted to help, she could easily have donated 1 million dollars to Action Against Hunger, for the sake of the cause. Instead she is treating it as a branding opportunity. Shame on you, Donna K.
Yikes, sounds to me you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I think it’s nice DK is giving a million. There are a lot of rich people out there that don’t give anything
Just to be clear, as far as I can tell from what I’ve read, DKNY has not earmarked any specific money for a donation, nor does it say that if this sells, the entire million will go to charity. If they are going to send this bottle around the world, I’m sure there will be significant costs on their end, to say nothing of whatever it cost to make it.
But I have not seen anything that looks like an official press release, either.
The stand reminds me of nothing so much as those glass dome paperweights with a fake flower “preserved” inside — available at your finer local dollar stores. (Not that I have anything against dollar stores, but I’m not sure Donna Karan and Martin Katz would feel the same way.)
I used to work with the development/fundraising staff at a small graduate school, and while I’m familiar with the idea that you have to spend money to raise money, my natural sentiments about this kind of thing are exactly in line with Ikat’s and bjorn’s.
If this was intended as a positive branding exercise, it’s failed. Making baubles to trick smug billionaires into giving to charities is, as others have said, pretty vulgar
Utterly disgusting, most particularly the concept, the fake charity angle that ups the publicity value. Gack!
Is it just me or does the bottle looks like the Chopard “Cashmir” bottle?
I think the bottle itself is on a sort of pedestal, but yeah, the whole contraption is pretty much a straight-up steal from Casmir. It’s certainly the first thing I thought of when I saw it.
Me too, before I realized that the stand was separate from the bottle.
I guess it’s true that you just can’t buy good taste.
Nope, but you can buy peculiar paper-weights, which is some consolation.
This bottle is a real work of art!!! I’d like to see it in person. Is there a perfume museum anywhere in the world????
There’s a Barcelona Museu del Perfum. Denyse wrote about it on Grain de Musc and has some photos at the very bottom of the right-hand sidebar. Probably many others, but I’d take Barcelona any day!
There’s also the Osmotheque in Versaille, which isn’t so focused on the bottles but rather on preserving and recreating the perfumes. I had an opportunity to sniff some of their recreations at a seminar – I’ll never forget the original Coty Chypre and L’Origan, Fath Iris Gris, Rosine Fruit Defendu, and other marvels.
Registered that. Thanks!! If you visit it first, pelase tell us your experience! Curiosity: are you a perfurmer or anything like that?
I do like the design of the bottle, sure, but the price? Loads of LOLZ. Yes, it’s for a worthy cause, and I’ve no doubt that some perfume hound with more money than sense will piss away some greenbacks on it, but let’s face it, it’s NOT worth a grand even if the cap and atomizer were of solid platinum. This is showmanship, pure and simple.
The question is: can one actually wear or otherwise “extract” those gemstones from the stand if she wishes to? Otherwise, what a nonsensical waste of $1m.
Hey, your profile photo is so fun!! How can I change mine?
See “user accounts”:
https://nstperfume.com/about-now-smell-this/comments-user-accounts/