Ladyburn’s 2nd Edition Whisky Channels the 1960s

‘How do you bring a sense of time to whisky?’ asked Jonathan Driver, the managing director of William Grant & Sons’ flourishing private clients division at the launch of Ladyburn’s 1966 Edition Two at South Kensington’s Grade II listed art hub, Cromwell Place. Suzy Menkes, a global fashion authority and former Vogue editor, had already demonstrated the answer. Her assembly of rarely seen pictures taken by fashion and royalty photographer, Norman Parkinson CBE, fronts the rare whisky collection. Exquisitely printed, the blazingly colourful compilation of ten labels, comparable in format to Polaroids or Instagram posts, shone from otherwise minimalist bottles. These feature carefree models so typical of the Swinging Sixties, enacting scenes such as Red Legs in Puerto Rico, Swedish Summer and Celtic Magic. The fluid images were captured from 1960-69 with Parkinson’s portable, gold detailed, Hasselblad camera. “Clothes mirror people’s souls," noted Menkes of the ensembles.