One look at the new Hennessy V.S. limited edition label design (available in July) and you could accuse its creator, Shepard Fairey of becoming a softy. But he’ll gladly drink to that since his use of floral motifs represent a new perspective on life. After building his name through an aggressive and bold political style with intense masculine overtones, Fairey is happily exploring the feminine side of his aesthetic. It’s all due to fatherhood and raising two young girls with his wife and business partner, Amanda Fairey.
“Being a parent and having a helpless infant to care for made me reconsider a lot of things and how important the maternal side is and being nurtured. As a guy—not intentionally—I had not given as much respect or importance to that,” he reflected. “But I saw this analogy between Hennessy which is distilled multiple times and making something that reflected that elegant nurturing side of things. So the peaceful and decorative elements in the label is the direction things took.”
Fairey, whose poster of President Barack Obama and imagery addressing themes of war and environmentalism leads him to identify as an “artist and activist,” still managed to get somewhat political with his Hennessy commission. You may miss it at first glance but he has included a subtle peace symbol on the bottle. “There is a little bit of a peace sign there. How could I not be political?”
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