Legend has it that the original model for the Champagne coupe was Marie Antoinette’s left breast. Historians claim that colorful myth—which has also been attributed to French aristocrats including Madame de Pompadour and Napoleon’s Joséphine—is false, the coupe having been invented in England for sparkling wine in 1663, nearly a century before Marie Antoinette’s birth in 1755.
The association of drinking vessels and and women’s breasts is even traced as far back as Helen of Troy, whose bust was said to be used to make wax molds for eventual cups. And in more recent times, the uniformly pert breasts of cabaret dancers from Paris’ Folies Bergère were subject to a Champagne glass test before hiring to ensure that their God-given cups floweth not over.
In the spirit of those clearly male fantasy-fueled legends, Dezeen reports that London’s 34 restaurant, where Kate Moss celebrated her 40th birthday, has commissioned Champagne coupes designed by British artist Jane McAdam Freud (the daughter of Lucian Freud) that are molded on the model’s left breast. Moss has never been shy about posing nude, and this isn’t the first time that her body has been immortalized by an artist.
“The 34 Kate Moss Coupe features an elongated slender stem and a bowl decorated with an Art Deco-influenced geometric pattern,” Dezeen writes, noting that Moss’ signature (but not the artist’s) is engraved on the coupe base.
Courtesy of 34
They add that the glass will be used to serve Champagne at 34 and its sister establishments The Ivy, Daphne’s, Scott’s, and The Club at The Ivy starting Oct. 9.
