ABSOCIETY

Line · 2008–2024 · 14 editions

Pride

Absolut Pride gathers the bottles Absolut has made in support of the LGBTQ+ community, most of them wearing Gilbert Baker's rainbow flag. It began in 2008 with Colors, made with Baker for the flag's thirtieth anniversary, the first spirits bottle to carry it. From there the rainbow became a recurring dress: Absolut asked Pond Design for Rainbow, a version meant to stay in the range and reissued as the community's own name grew from LGBTQ+ to LGBTQIA+. Around it sit editions for Pride events, a tribute made with the Gilbert Baker Foundation after his death, and paper wraps by artists and designers.

14 editions

  1. Rainbow 2024 2024 · 1 variant The 2024 Rainbow carries the 2022 artwork with one change of wording on the bottle: LGBTQ+ becomes LGBTQIA+.
  2. Sydney Worldpride 2023 · 2 variants Made for Sydney WorldPride, held across February and March 2023. It carries the 2022 Rainbow artwork with a medallion reading Sydney WorldPride 2023.
  3. Pride by Ricardo Cavolo 2022 · 1 variant A paper wrap for Pride in Spain by Ricardo Cavolo, the Barcelona-based artist whose work runs on folk art, tattoo tradition old and new, European religious imagery and tribal design all at once.
  4. Rainbow 2022 2022 · 3 variants The 2022 Rainbow, with Country of Sweden embossed into the glass and a paper label.
  5. x BALR. 2022 · 1 variant A collaboration with BALR., the luxury label founded by professional footballers in 2013, aimed at making football a less hostile place. The bottle is wrapped in high-quality paper carrying Gilbert Baker's rainbow reworked after Daniel Quasar's Progress Pride flag, which adds brown and black to the stripes for queer people of colour. It came with a BALR. hoodie and T-shirt. 500 copies.
  6. Gilbert Baker 2020 · 3 variants A bottle made with the Gilbert Baker Foundation in tribute to the artist and gay rights activist who gave the movement its flag. Absolut had worked with Baker on limited editions since 2008; this one was designed after his death.
  7. Life Ball #1 2018 · 1 variant An exclusive for the Vienna Life Ball, the largest charity event in Europe for people living with HIV and AIDS. It carries the Rainbow artwork with a pink ribbon set into the medallion.
  8. Colombia Pride 2017 · 1 variant An accident that became a collectable. Pernod Ricard Colombia meant to launch the Rainbow Edition at four Pride parties in Medellín and Bogotá; the bottles never arrived in time, so rainbow A stickers were printed and stuck over the A on the back of ordinary 750 ml blue label bottles sold at the events. Only the cases that passed through those nights were customised, and the number is unknown.
  9. Rainbow 2017 · 3 variants The Pride flag made permanent. After the Colors editions, Absolut wanted a rainbow bottle that stayed in the range rather than coming and going, and commissioned Pond Design to draw one. The point was to make the flag look freshly applied: after trying brushes, rollers and spray cans, they kept the visible hand-made imperfections, which is what gives the bottle its urgency.
  10. Mix 2016 · 4 variants Six colours of the Pride flag, cut into semi-transparent triangles that overlap differently depending on where you stand — the design's argument being that people become something else when they mix. It follows the 2008 and 2015 Colors bottles made with Gilbert Baker and the 2009 No Labels, which carried no logo at all. Some carry Khuli Chana's signature.
  11. Colors #2 2015 · 4 variants The second Colors bottle keeps the rainbow of the first, with white text and a medallion on the glass — L.O. Smith with his thumb up — and a rewritten inscription.
  12. Colors #3 2015 · 2 variants Colors #3 repeats the artwork and colours of the second bottle, with the text set in black instead of white.
  13. Colors #1 2014 · 2 variants The bottle wears Gilbert Baker's rainbow flag, drawn in 1978 as a statement of solidarity, love and respect for difference. It has been the emblem of the LGBT movement ever since, and also the flag of loud celebration — which is why Absolut, a supporter of the community since its first ads ran in The Advocate and After Dark in 1980, has returned to it again and again.
  14. Colors Case 2008 · 4 variants A rainbow hard-plastic sleeve made for the thirtieth anniversary of the Pride flag, and the start of what became a long-running series of Absolut bottles wearing Gilbert Baker's design.

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