Today I’m going to highlight the first ingredient in the four part Veuve Clicquot Recipe that I promised you yesterday: 1 part design. It became clear to me during my time in France that design plays a central role in the Veuve Clicquot brand. Through collaborations with some of the world’s foremost luxury brands and designers, it has been successful in parlaying it’s famous and storied heritage into a modern brand with modern appeal. During that process, it rings true that the history of Veuve Clicquot is never lost in one of their many modern updates — rather, its authenticity has been artfully preserved.

While there are many more examples of how VC has tapped the talents of some of the worlds most astute designers to keep the brand constantly updated and relevant (case in point, it’s collaborations with Christophe Pillet), I’ve chosen to feature four of my favorite projects in this post…

Veuve Clicquot Vertical Limit by Porsche Design (photos above). With a limited production of twelve units and a staggering cost of 120,000 Euros, the Vertical Limit is not your ordinary champagne cooler. Its design aesthetic is unmistakably Porsche Design, with those cool, clean metallic lines and warm back-lit interior. Veuve Clicquot’s contribution inside is even more impressive… a collection of twelve vintages; twelve perfect marriages of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. When one of the lucky owners decides to vacate one of the spots in the Vertical Limit, she can fill the empty spot with another one of her favorite vintages. The year of birth of a given vintage is printed on the end of each individual door on a metallic placard. For lack of a better description, this thing’s “baller.”

My other 3 design picks are after the jump…

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I’ve heard that “green is the new black” a lot recently–but it looks like for Porsche Design, white is the new black. A technical, clean look for summer seems to be Porsche Design’s story this spring. Their new White Collection will hit stores in May, and is comprised of a pretty diverse smattering of products, all clad in clean white costume. All of the ‘anti-color’ will be accompanied by both shiny and brushed aspects of aluminum, titanium, and stainless steel (pictured here, from left: P’9521 Cell Phone, P’1140 Jacket, P’3140 Shakepen, and P’3635 Lighter). A bold look for the summer season — I must say — the White Collection isn’t all about aesthetics; the PD’s black version of the mobile phone, for instance, has already won a bunch of design awards, employing a fingerprint sensor for user identification, and the Shakepen is activated by a nifty ’shake of the wrist’ mechanism. I’d also like to see what kind of white flame that lighter produces–think they’ve nailed down that white fire technology yet?

Porsche Design is certainly tapped into “what men want,” and its new collaboration with luxury kitchen designer Poggenpohl is a reminder that men like to spend time in the kitchen too (and what guy wouldn’t want to spend time in a kitchen like this?). The design is abundant with sleek and functional aluminum profiles and frames, glass, integrated lighting, and comes with your choice of driftwood or dark oak fronts to set off the other, more technical and steely materials. All of the doors incorporate innovative mechanisms that dispense with the need for handles — no more inadvertently tearing your drawers off while going for a midnight snack. And what would a “man’s” kitchen be without high tech audio-video integration that will stand up to that chicken wing sauce that you splash while hurrying back to the couch for the last play of the game? Look for this new (and tailored) kitchen concept at Poggenpohl studios around the world in spring 2008 and in the U.S. at the end of next summer; girlfriends and wives: fine…you can come too.

My guess is that this piece of news is the biggest thing to come out of this year’s Miami Boat Show. The Porsche Design Studio has teamed up with Miami-based high-end yacht manufacturer Fearless to develop a range of gorgeous sea-faring vessels ranging from 28 ft. to 150 ft. in length. They debuted the 28 ft. model in Miami at the convention– it has a seamless hull, clean European curves, and is powered by a 525 hp Dodge Viper Engine (sorta weird, I know). The price tag on the 28 footer is $300,000, which makes me wonder what the 150 footer will cost– but rumor has it that college funds all over the country are beginning to disappear.

Via Gizmodo

We’re going to let you in on a secret here at JoshSpear.com. As far as blogs go, you know nothing beats us (but of course!) for content on what’s fresh and inspiring in the world. But what you might not know is that over in the Land of the Rising Sun there is an online magazine/blog collective that is really blazing trails with its depth and quality of content. Honeyee.com is an online magazine based out of Japan that is truly a multi-faceted web presence. On one hand you have quality features on leading design-centric companies like Burton, Porsche, and Nike. And on the other hand you have a blog roll section that includes heavyweights and legends such as Hiroshi Fujiwara, Jeff Staple (Staple Design), Paul Mittleman (Stussy), and even musicians John Mayer and Eric Clapton. Many of the Honeyee bloggers are Japanese and therefore blog in Japanese, but don’t let that stop you from perusing their entries. Check it out and see how sweet the Honeyee is!!

It’s snowing here– and that means it’s time to clean out the fireplace and get the JavaLogs ready. Wintertime for me, for whatever reason, also means drinking plenty of tea and eating lots of toast. We’d be very happy if this brushed aluminum Porsche designed two-slice toaster ended up in our kitchens this winter. It not only looks great, it has a memory system that remembers the last setting you used to toast your bread. Crispy brown please. Via Notcot

When car design meets technology– these super sweet porsche designed tabletop and portable AM/FM and XM satellite radios are what you get. Coming out this fall, too bad they wont be available in time for the holidays. Sleek and sexy design, giving those Tivoli Audio XM Radios a run for their money.
Via Gizmodo