Cool Hunting

The Talent Zone at Tent during the London Design Festival was a rich source of creativity. After being wowed by Debbie Smyth's Pins and Thread installation, the nearby dramatically-titled Deadly Glasses caught our attention. The elaborate opulence of designer Kacper Hamilton's work directly contrasts the minimalism of Smyth's. His seven hand-blown red wine glasses were exhibited in and around a beautiful wooden box with a crushed velvet inlay.

Each glass has been designed to symbolize, in its expressive form and function, one of the seven deadly sins. Hamilton says "The '7 Deadly Glasses' are about celebrating passion and encouraging the user to be sinful in a theatrical fashion." Eye-catching, witty and seductively beautiful, these wine glasses cannot be said to be practical — in fact through indulgence they could be very dangerous. Drinking from them poses a considerable challenge and some rather careful thought.

The Wrath glass with its very sharp point, implies a bloody injury if used without due care. Greed, with its many tentacles, could make quite a mess and Sloth, by its very nature, requires someone else to do the pouring while you lie back and enjoy. The other glasses, Pride, Gluttony, Lust and Envy, all have enjoyably distinctive characters of their own as well. As part of a limited edition series made in England, surely these glasses are the ideal collectors items for the gracious hosts who want to keep their friends close but their enemies closer.