I’ve been aware of Vic’s work for a while, mainly from looking on admirably through her rainbow of an Instagram account, various friends who have her work hung proudly on their walls plus a visit to the ME hotel in Ibiza where her work features in just about every room. When we had the idea of creating a commission piece for our gift box there was only really one person we wanted to take it on. Her use of colour and form, often woven through visual storytelling, felt perfect for what we were trying to achieve.

After a few Instagram messages Victoria was keen so after smiling widely for a few hours I told Ross the good news and we arranged to meet in her Bath studio. For those that haven’t had the privilege of walking into her studio it’s like being transported into some parallel Alice in Wonderland universe where shape and form merge across some sort of mad technicolour rainbow. I challenge anyone to leave there and feel sad. One of the pieces she was working on at the time was a repeatable print wallpaper which had the bones of telling the story we’d imagined. It was black and white and used different shapes, animals, birds and objects but it essentially was the idea we latched onto when dreaming up what we now have. We chatted through a lot of ideas, colour palettes and moths (lots of moth chat) and then we left, drunk on colour and excitement, for her to weave in her magic to what, at the time, we didn’t know would become such a beautiful member of the Vapoura family. 

At Vapoura we love story telling (what is the world without stories?) and the finished print itself tells its own. From the eclipse of moths to the subtle nods of botanicals we use in our rum, the print is awash with Vapoura’s story. We’ve even woven in iconic symbols of our favourite children’s stories that our parents told us as kids (two gold stars if you can find them) in amongst a warm collection of colours that we thought conveyed the warmth of Vapoura. We named it “Through the Bottle”, not just an insight into the liquid but the people behind it as well. 

The driving force behind the collaboration was to decorate our gift box with it, inside and out, and we did but it has become so much more. It’s used across cocktail menus, custom furniture, vinyl sleeves, digital content, we’ve even brought it to life in motion across one of the largest immersive digital galleries in Europe when we took over Frameless Art Gallery in Marble Arch for our launch. At the risk of spouting hyperbole, it’s as much a part of Vapoura’s DNA as the rum and we never get tired of exploring the different forms and guises it shows up in. 

Thank you Vic for agreeing to work with us on this and bringing it all to life. I dream hard on where we’ll take it next.

~ Olly, Vapoura Co-Founder

Discover more about this creative collaboration here.