In one of the more bizarre outside-the-box collaborations I have yet discovered, designer Jean-Paul Gaultier has teamed up with Dallas-based Dillon Gage Metals to create … a Gaultier one-ounce gold bar. Forget jewellery; he’s gone straight to the source.
Indeed, this is the first time a fashionista has plunged directly into the world of commodities itself, as opposed to what can be made from commodities. It’s a novel approach to the recent luxury world problem of the skyrocketing price of the yellow metal, which has seen many brands in a flight from gold, exploring other materials (silver, Palladium, diamonds) instead.
The Gaultier bar is a standard ingot, fashioned-up on one side with a heart in the middle of signature Gaultier “sailor-stripes” (hard to imagine, I know, but that’s what they say), his signature, and some sun rays. Billed as a multi-dimensional investment — ”a way to diversify holdings” and “hedge against inflation”, plus add some designer equity, not to mention play on the lure of the limited edition — the ignot will cost 11 per cent more than the standard bar (currently approximately $1,700).
So far 5,000 have been made and are available in the United States. If they sell as Terry Hanlon, Dillon Gage President, predicts, I sense a whole new area of brand extension to be explored: designer metals. After all, Puig, the Spanish group that owns Gaultier, also own Carolina Herrera, Nina Ricci and Paco Rabanne (as well as a gazillion designer fragrance licenses). The development does beg the question, however: if one were you invest in such an item, would one really want to hide it in a bank, or under a bed?
Vanessa has been the FT’s fashion editor since 2003, and is based in New York, though she lived in London for 12 years.