I don’t really drink martinis much, but I will admit they are the drinks that started my facination with alcohol. Martinis are by far the most elegant drink I can think of. They range in many styles, flavors, and most importantly glasses. Bombay Sapphire, my Gin of choice, hosts an annual competition that encourages the art that lies in the martini glass.

The Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition is an annual event held in partnership with the design community to recognize excellence among emerging design talent. The goal of the Global Competition is to design a functional martini glass inspired by the Bombay Sapphire brand. The Competition takes place each April in Milan, Italy, during Salone del Mobile, the world’s biggest design fair. Each participating country will have their glass professionally manufactured and brought to Milan to be displayed and judged.

The above photo is of the winning glass for the year 2005.

The above photo is of the winning glass for the year 2006.

UK-based designers, Tomek Rygalik and Jorre van Ast have been named winners of this year’s Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition for their glass ‘Inverted’.

Rygalik from Poland and his Dutch design partner, Jorre van Ast, who studied together at the Royal College of Art in London, collected the US $15,000 prize from Spanish designer, Patricia Urquiola at the international final held this evening as part of Milan Design Week.

There are many many elegant designs on Bombays website (click the first picture). The 2006 winner had me awestruck at first until I pictured myself drinking from it. Then I realized that it resembles a ladle and all the innovation and elegance simply dissappeared. It still looks very cool, but I do not think that it is very functional nor should it have won the competition.

Anyway, check out the site and browse through the top ten US entries. The Grand Prize winner from the US has an amazing glass.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 10th, 2006 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Art, Bucho. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.