Kim Jones on His New Limited Edition Sneaker and Bottle With Hennessy

Elise Taylor
·3 min read
Kim Jones on His New Limited Edition Sneaker and Bottle With Hennessy

To Kim Jones, designing a decanter isn’t that different from designing a dress. “Look at the shape,” he says while sitting in a suite at New York’s Aman hotel, and gesturing to a bar stocked with the spirit nearby. “You can see the form—there’s the neck, there’s the body. It’s all there.”

So it’s no surprise that when Hennessy X.O asked the Dior Men and Fendi artistic director to craft a limited edition cognac collection for the brand, he approached it in a similar way to his process with fashion: First, a trip to the Hennessy archives. There, a selection of early 20th-century bottles, covered in crinkling parchment, caught his eye. “I thought—well, that’s kind of like fabric,” he says.

Both materials, Jones concluded, would be too impractical for this venture. So he dreamt up an aluminum encasement, with a wrapped design reminiscent of the waxy papers from decades past. He then used 3-D printing to make it a reality, before folding it around the bottle much like he would a mannequin or model. “I approached it like I would drape a couture dress on the body,” Jones notes.

<cite class="credit">Courtesy of Hennessy XO</cite>
Courtesy of Hennessy XO

Jones’s decanter twists its way upward in a gradient: at the bottom is a dark amber hue reflecting the liquid itself, while towards the middle a warm bronze picks up the shades of the Hennessy label. At the top, it turns silver—a nod to the very material it’s made of. A matching decanter acts as an accessory, while the bottle itself comes in a similar draped design, but in a uniform golden hue.

If couture inspired his cognac, Jones made sure the reverse was also true: along with the bottle, he’s also designed a limited edition sneaker for Hennessy called the HNY Low. The shoe quietly reflects the aesthetic properties of the drink itself. “It really was the idea of looking at cognac as a color—what the product was really inside of the bottle, and the what the liquid was,” he says of the nubuck leather footwear. In particular, Jones took note of the liquor’s reflective glint, giving the soles and laces a shiny patina. (On the heel, he discreetly placed his own initials and Hennessy’s signature bras armé emblem.)

<cite class="credit">Courtesy of Hennessy XO</cite>
Courtesy of Hennessy XO

While the shoe’s luxurious fabrication and attention to detail may reflect his shared design values with Hennessy, Jones also wanted to ensure the HNY Lows were practical for the consumer, too. “The shoe can be worn formally or casually,” he says. “I was looking at the functionality of the customer’s lifestyle—a brown shoe is an acceptable thing in a smart restaurant.”

And of course, it wouldn’t be a fashion launch without a glitzy event to accompany it. On Saturday night in New York City, Jones inaugurated his collaboration with a star-studded dinner, where guests including Natasha Lyonne, Lori Harvey, and Marc Jacobs stopped by the Aman as cameras flashed across plinths showcasing Jones’s creations.

The bottles and sneakers will be available on Hennessy’s website, as well as in selected retail stores. For Jones, however, the partnership is just as much about their shared philosophy as it is about the objects themselves. In his own words: “I was looking at the heritage of the house, the concept of what Hennessy is, in tandem with things I do like Fendi.”

Originally Appeared on Vogue

More Great Living Stories From Vogue

Latest Stories