Lady Gaga Discusses Collaboration With Dom Pérignon

Lady Gaga spoke to British GQ about her collaboration with Dom Pérignon. The singer and activist shared how creative freedom, risk-taking and dismantling injustice, are all part of this collaboration. 

Lady Gaga by Mark Selliger

The article detailed how Gaga and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, celebrated an extremely generous donation to their Born This Way Foundation from Dom Pérignon. The sum of the donation has yet to be announced, due to it being raised by a charity lottery. The lottery gave entrants the opportunity to "win an extraordinarily special, limited-edition sculpture – only 110 of them exist – which forms just one part of the epic, two-year partnership between Lady Gaga and Dom Pérignon, centred on an all-new, limited edition Rosé Vintage from 2006."

The limited-edition sculpture was designed by Gaga, Nicola Formichetti, and Dom Pérignon. Gaga described the piece as "It’s full of life and energy [...] What I love about it is that it seems to have momentum and that is something that I wish very much for humanity, that we will have momentum through love.”

The notion of love played a vital role in the collaboration, between the sculpture and the video campaign created by Nick Knight. Gaga spoke about the film and sculpture, expressing: 

“I hope that the love we’ve shared in this collaboration is something that shines through when you watch the film that Nick has made, when you see the sculpture, if you drink the champagne, that you feel the love between us all. That was something that we cared about. I care about it in all of the collaborations that I do, I even became close with the people that work at MGM before I began my show in Vegas. I believe in family, I believe in relationships and I believe that culture should involve realness and authenticity. All of that was infused into this.”

The collaboration between Lady Gaga and Dom Pérignon was born from their mutual value in creative freedom. This value became the heart of the campaign.  Dom Pérignon's Chef de Cave Vincent Chaperon, said that the reason they reached out to Gaga in the first place was due to “her drive for reinvention, humanity, the fact that she’s the embodiment of creation and innovation herself.” Two years were spent learning about one another and understanding mutual inspiration and connection. Gaga stated that she decided to work with Dom Pérignon once they'd met and began to build an artistic family,

“I don’t claim to be an expert in champagne, but I am an expert, I think, in people. They are wonderful people and we’ve worked well together. I think creative freedom is something we’ve enjoyed exploring and it’s created a lot of love and a lot of alchemy between us.”

Lady Gaga by Mark Selliger

Along with the values of love and creative freedom, there is a shared importance of risk-taking between the collaborators. Chaperon described it as "having the courage to explore the unknown, to go beyond your territory without losing ‘you’", with an emphasis on risk-taking without aggressiveness. Seeing as Gaga is notorious for reinvention while remaining firm on kindness, the pair were a sort of perfect marriage. Gaga was described as "the perfect embodiment of the Dom Pérignon ethos." Chaperon explained that the reason they chose the rosé for the campaign was because “It encapsulates this idea of pushing boundaries, as it is the hardest of all of our wines to produce.”

Gaga spoke in more detail about the film that Nick Knight created, expressing her excitement to create something "extremely bold, mesmerising and [that] embodied artistry". The film was centered around the concept of "Queendom" - an idea that was born based on the old saying that champagne was made for kings. Gaga did not like the patriarchal view of champagne, and wanted to show that champagne was made for queens just as much so,

"we liked the idea of empowering women as well, or celebrating anyone that would identify with a Queendom, which includes everyone. Whenever possible, if I see a capable moment to dismantle something I believe is not serving humanity, not just the patriarchy, I will put it into the work.”

When asked by British GQ what the biggest risk she'd ever taken is, Gaga answered in a way no one could disagree with: “In one way, I could answer that question simply and say my whole career was one big risk.”

Gaga was also asked whether there was a moment in the past decade that she was most proud of, to which she replied:

“I’m very proud to have heard the stories of so many people around the world and [that I] decided to devote my life to the sharing of those stories. [I’m glad I was able to] meet people, hear their struggles and make that a part of my art [...] Do I believe that art and activism are one in the same? Not always. I believe that art can possess a spirit of activism, but I believe that activism is a lifelong work and it’s one that I’m committed to every day. I’m committed to a lifetime of unlearning.”

Dom Pérignon Rosé Vintage 2006 x Lady Gaga is launching exclusively at Harrods for the month of October 2021 and available from wider stockists as of 30 October 2021.

Source.