Inspired by Empathy, Don C Collaborates with Moët & Chandon

Moët & Chandon Taps Don C

Moët & Chandon and the renowned streetwear designer Don C have joined for an exclusive collaboration of champagne bottles and NBA-inspired hoodies. The partnership moves beyond the geographical, cultural, and creative boundaries of champagne and basketball to embrace design, sport, and the art of celebration, linking the French maison to Chicago—the city where the Founder of Just Don is based and acts as the Creative Strategy and Design Advisor of the Chicago Bulls.

Fusing the culture of basketball with the heritage of champagne, the collection includes bottles of Impérial Brut and Nectar Impérial Rosé bubbly and black hoodies featuring vibrant NBA logos from eight iconic NBA teams: the Los Angeles Lakers, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Miami Heat, the Oklahoma Thunder, the Dallas Mavericks, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Milwaukee Bucks.

“We are thrilled to partner with our longtime friend of the house, Don C, giving him carte blanche to revamp the design of two of our most coveted champagne bottles,” said Anne-Sophie Stock, Vice President of Moët & Chandon. “Aligning with our brand identity, this collection of limited-edition Impérial Brut, Nectar Impérial Rosé, and customized hoodie brings to life the worlds of luxury and sport. Through this collaboration, we encourage celebration around the extraordinary moments in life—from the big championships to smaller life victories, and everything in between.”

Whitewall spoke with Don C to hear how his passion for basketball was ignited, and why this collaboration with Moët & Chandon emphasizes his devotion to empathy, community, and opportunity.

WHITEWALL: You and your wife, Kristen Noel Crawley, collaborated with Moët & Chandon years ago for a photo shoot, an event, and a campaign. Your collaboration today is a bit more robust, with you spearheading the design of new products. How did this latest partnership come about?

DON C: The relationship has been continuously growing. To reinforce the partnership with the NBA, I think this year made sense for me to do something creatively around the bottle. They wanted the bottle to be able to have a special edition to express and celebrate their partnership with the NBA, and it being the official champagne of the league. They felt like I was somebody that sat within the realm between luxury and sport that was appropriate to work on this project. 

WW: As a designer and creative director who works with your own brand and many others, you’re tapped into different industries—from streetwear and sports to music and the arts. What was it like collaborating with Moët & Chandon in this way? What do you think champagne and streetwear have in common?

DC: I like to look not at what the actual product is, but the synergy between the partners. I look at the pillars of what the brand represents. Does it sit well and co-exist with my brand and what I’m trying to message? So, the pillars of similarity are sport. We both want to celebrate sport, the heritage behind sport, and how sport is also a unifying factor and it brings people together. And luxury. I think champagne always gives the impression of some type of luxurious experience and celebration. And by being a brand with so much heritage, founded in 1743, I wanted to bring some type of modern edge that still upheld the aesthetic of the brand. In a nutshell, situations change, but principles remain the same. I didn’t approach it as if it was a t-shirt or a sneaker, a hoodie or a champagne bottle. It’s a creative product that we want to storytell, and we want to celebrate. 

“I look at the pillars of what the brand represents.”

WW: What design principles within basketball culture did you pull on for inspiration?

DC: One of the things with this Moët messaging is always celebrating. If you think of champagne, you think of it as a New Year’s Eve celebration, a celebratory drink, or in the club celebrating with your friends. That’s cool, but how can we have more extraordinary moments throughout the season that we can celebrate? I think that leads to a very natural partnership with the NBA because the NBA is a season of extraordinary moments that you can celebrate. The synergy there is natural. 

I want to seem to be natural within the space of sport and luxury. Those are the words that I love to merge. I love to play between those lanes. I love to celebrate the similarities and differences of each. It’s the moment. It’s where culture is. It’s a blend of things that all come together and it’s a uniting of people, ideas, and principles, and celebrating them. For us to have the privilege to do so on a creative medium, and then through a medium that people are literally using to celebrate, I thought that was very appreciative. I’m overwhelmed with joy to be able to work on it. 

WW: As you mentioned, there are many similarities, but differences, too. Champagne is rooted in heritage, based in Épernay; and the NBA is more contemporary in nature, based in the United States. Was there something that surprised you while working on this collaboration that ended up being an inspiration?

DC: I was overwhelmed with the heritage, and the fact that those cellars had been there for hundreds of years—through world wars and all types of mishaps. I also appreciated the business aspect of getting champagne to a consumer. Some of the things that I questioned from a creative standpoint I now understand from a manufacturing and distribution standpoint. I thought, “Wow, this brand has been determined years ago. You can’t just change something because creatively this is different.”

It allowed me also to look at the principle of empathy. I’m big on displaying empathy, whether it be in personal matters or in design as a design principle. In displaying empathy, and thinking about how another person benefits or how they enjoy and experience, I thought it was really empathetic when it came to growing champagne grapes and the process. You’re making something that you’re trying to perfect, that you will not be able to benefit from in only a future generation. I analyzed that and thought about that principle when I approached the creative. 

“I was overwhelmed with the heritage.”

WW: Collaborating with a brand gives the product something unique. For some people, it’s reach. For others, it’s mutual inspiration. What does collaboration give you and your practice?

DC: It’s how I thrive. Whether it’s formally called a collaboration or not, everything I do is collaborative. I haven’t worked on one thing in my entire career that has been done by just myself. The utmost joy in creating is collaborating and bouncing ideas off of someone else. People make the world go around, so collaboration is like the people’s version of business. I always love to collaborate. It doesn’t even have to be a formal collaboration. I’ve collaborated on so many projects that I haven’t even communicated that I’ve worked on. And vice-versa for other people. It doesn’t always have to be so formal. It can just be a collaborative process, like asking their opinion or what emotion it invoked when they saw something. All of that input adds to being able to present something that can make the world better.

“People make the world go around.”

WW: Your ongoing collaborations, known or not, have been huge successes—like your hats for the late designer Virgil Abloh’s previous collections at Louis Vuitton. How have your peers, like him, impacted your creativity?  

DC: It gives you a good tone on what’s current when it’s inspiration from your peers. It’s what’s present. I’m big on history and doing research, so I nerd out on discovering new information, but sometimes history doesn’t matter as much as the current or the future to the public. That’s why collaborating with your peers is important, to get a present-day tone or criticism of whatever you’re working on.

WW: You’re also married to a creative—a woman who is involved in fashion and beauty on her own as an entrepreneur and Founder of KNC Beauty. Does she inspire you?

DC: It keeps it interesting at all points in the day. We can bounce ideas off of each other. Raising children, also adds a new dimension, as they’re observing it. They have input and know what’s going on—at least the teenagers. It’s good. I believe most people are a reflection of the people they surround themselves with. So, if you’re surrounded by creatives that display principles that you’re attracted to or emulate or are encouraged by, that’s what it’s all about. 

WW: You mentioned fatherhood, and recently welcomed another baby girl nine months ago. Congratulations! How does being a father impact your work in culture, and how it might impact the future generation?

DC: I mentioned this a bit earlier, but one of the things that impressed me about Épernay was the feeling of empathy behind making the product. In being empathetic, I’m always trying to think of how others will benefit from the experiences or anything I can bring to the table. Any point of view or any experience I can share is always for the further betterment of other people, and mostly young people, the next generation. And not just my biological children. It’s really about community building, and being a tribe. 

My father used to encourage me by helping other people. I was an only child, so I used to get a little jealous, wondering why he was always spending time with other people. But in hindsight, my dad was helping other people who didn’t have parents to help them. 

I say it’s a community and a tribe because I don’t think my children will particularly benefit from just my influence. It might be the influence of one of my peers, someone that I mentor that’s able to mentor my children. It’s not just my kids, I want to bring value to everybody. A lot of times, kids don’t really receive messaging from their parents well. I just want my kids to pay attention to how I’m living and how I’m moving.

“My father used to encourage me by helping other people.”

WW: You’re using your influence and experience to uplift and engage with the future generation in a transparent way. In the future, how are you hoping to engage the youth and create community beyond what you’re doing now?

DC: My goal for the future is to build communities. I take time to listen to people. Time is our most precious commodity, so I always try and give my time. Knowing that, and that I have a lot of other responsibilities and commitments, I don’t have a lot of it, so formally, I bought a building on the south side of Chicago and started a foundation called the Fashion Athletic Arts Museum. It’s going to be a museum. I want to take my interest in curating, community-building, meeting, and exhibiting and apply that to aggravate interest in the mediums of fashion and athletics, through an arts medium to bring people together. Eventually, I want it to be educational with curriculum, with job placement. 

Including this Moët collaboration, I know there were some young people I let in the studio to work on the project so they could get that experience. That’s what it’s all about. People want to feel involved and they want to benefit from it, whether that’s by being credited or compensated. They want to build from it. That’s something I want to continue to bring, and an opportunity I appreciated from this collaboration with Moët & Chandon, because it’s what validates the opportunity. They have the resources and the presence to put out a campaign that resonates and is appreciated during the NBA playoffs. It’s for people to feel empowered and privileged and proud to work on these projects.

“My goal for the future is to build communities.”

WW: The basketball games of today feel more like an experience, rather than just a sports game, filled with music, merchandise, and dancing. How would you describe what it is now?

DC: Now, every experience is such a melting pot of culture. You experience music by a DJ, visual stimulation from a light show. Now, that also includes hip-hop, fashion, and visual merchandising. Those things weren’t a part of basketball when I got into it, so I got into all that, too. To see it as a big gumbo soup of culture is really cool. You can really enjoy a basketball game by not even enjoying basketball. It’s the energy in the building. 

WW: Where did your love of basketball come from?

DC: My dad. He influenced a lot of what I’m interested in. He exposed me to sports at a young age, specifically basketball. He used to play pick-up games. When I was three or four, he used to let me roll with him to late-night pick-up games, so I would see all these old men playing basketball, running up and down the court. I’d try and get a shot, and sometimes would get in the way. You start to learn the culture and the game that way. But it wasn’t such a melting pot back then. 

WW: This melting pot is something that’s found at your Just Don store in Chicago—a space you opened last year, and where this collaboration will also be available. How do you describe that space?

DC: Well, that’s what we try to do. That’s been the goal! I’ve been a retailer since 2009 with RSVP Gallery and opened this space to share our point of view, and be able to express our brand. We felt a lot of other multi-brand retailers have to worry about the business and the square footage of the store, and our storytelling is on the backburner. It’s all about expressing the storytelling of the brand. We have fictitious teams within our brand, and are able to merchandise different artists that we celebrate that do works that are sports-themed. I like things like that. And I highly encourage anyone to come by the store, if you’re in Chicago and around the West Loop.