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.