Most champagne homes put on their identification in shades of ivory and gold – the visible grammar of luxurious. Veuve Clicquot is the conspicuous exception. Its now-iconic yellow branding dates to the nineteenth century, when the home launched a vivid label to tell apart its drier champagne.
For Milan Design Week 2026, Veuve Clicquot has taken that sunny legacy and translated it right into a limited-edition assortment of drinks equipment, amongst them a champagne bucket and cooler. Entitled ‘Chasing the Solar’, the gathering was developed in collaboration with British-Nigerian designer Yinka Illori MBE. Once you’re constructing a group round color and vibrancy, the self-styled ‘architect of pleasure’ was maybe an apparent selection.
(Picture credit score: Veuve Clicquot)
Illori’s interpretation is mild, shiny and uplifting. Drawing on his Nigerian heritage, he has common a visible world of joyous motifs throughout the equipment: palms cradling the solar, reimagined celestial kinds and symbols rooted in nature and human connection. The standout items – the ‘Solar Totems’ and ‘Solar Holder’ – are impressed by the calabash fruit, which has historically served throughout West Africa as a transportable consuming vessel.
The gathering additionally features a reimagined model of the Clicquot Arrow reward field – formed as a street signal displaying the gap between a selected vacation spot and the maison’s cellars in Reims – alongside smaller equipment resembling a bottle stopper and grape-material charms. Upcycled supplies and 3D knitting expertise are used all through.
Yinka Illori on his joyful assortment of consuming equipment
Wallpaper*: How did you stability your signature aesthetic with Veuve Clicquot’s visible heritage?
Yinka Illori: It was about discovering the best framework. I noticed myself because the body, reframing their heritage by means of my very own lens.
There was already a pure invitation by means of the model’s signature color. That color, relying on the sunshine, perspective and what surrounds it, presents a variety of tones – typically extra orange, typically extra yellow. Identical to the solar, it has pure variations.
Since color is what provides my work depth and perspective, this grew to become the frequent thread – the pure equaliser between my visible language and their heritage identification.
(Picture credit score: Veuve Clicquot)
W*: How do you translate feelings of happiness and optimism into tangible objects?
In relation to pleasure and optimism, I’m actually taken with how we get there and the place we decide folks up, as a result of everyone seems to be chasing that feeling.
For me, optimism comes from the concept happiness is one thing we create ourselves. It exists inside every of us. So the method begins with wanting inward, listening intently after which translating that into bodily type. The shapes and objects come out of that strategy of reflection, giving type to one thing that’s normally invisible.
(Picture credit score: Veuve Clicquot)
W*: What was your design course of for this assortment?
YI: The method was very a lot about immersion: each in my very own context and in Veuve Clicquot’s world. Visiting the winery, I used to be within the position that the solar performs – on a sensible stage, it helps the grapes develop, however extra importantly, on a conceptual stage, you may really feel its presence within the heat and care that goes into the making.
That linked strongly to my very own heritage. In Nigeria, the calabash is a pure type that’s utilized in some ways. The solar helps it develop, but it surely reaches its full potential when folks collect round it and use it.
The shapes within the assortment are impressed by the calabash, which was very current in my upbringing. The hand motifs characterize neighborhood and craftsmanship, the circle represents the facility of the solar, and the solar itself is mirrored in Veuve Clicquot’s signature color. The colors are additionally impressed by pure parts – the completely different hues the solar creates relying on the time of day, the supplies it touches and the surroundings.
(Picture credit score: Veuve Clicquot)
W*: How did you strategy choosing supplies and processes?
YI: My journey as an artist and designer began with upcycling. What pursuits me is the concept objects already carry a historical past, a life that has been lived. It’s about recognising that and reframing them. That’s why upcycled supplies felt pure for this venture. They already maintain tales, and when introduced collectively, they create new ones.
3D knitting is a more recent ingredient for me, however I’ve all the time had a robust curiosity in textiles, particularly due to their significance in Nigerian tradition, whether or not it’s aso-oke, tie-dye or Dutch wax prints. What I discover attention-grabbing about 3D knitting is that it provides textiles a sculptural high quality. It permits them to take up area slightly than stay flat. In that sense, it turns into one other medium for storytelling.
W*: What can guests anticipate from the set up at Milan Design Week, the place these items will probably be debuted?
YI: I wished to create an area the place folks can really feel heat, calm and inspiration. It displays the identical sentiment because the merchandise themselves. Milan Design Week may be very energetic and thrilling, but additionally fairly intense. I wished to supply a second the place folks can decelerate, come collectively in heat and peace.
(Picture credit score: Veuve Clicquot)
W*: What do you hope folks really feel once they use or expertise these items?
YI: I hope to take folks on a journey, present them my very own journey, but additionally Veuve Clicquot’s. Finally, I need folks to look inside themselves and discover their very own ‘solar’, each individually and inside their neighborhood.
‘Chasing the Solar’ makes its debut at Milan Design Week, working 21-26 April 2026, at Mediateca Santa Teresa, By way of della Moscova 28, Milan.
Supply: Wallpaper
