Chasing the
Sun.
Thirty Joy Messengers, four thousand newspapers, and one long walk across Manhattan on the longest day of the year.
Veuve Clicquot has been in the business of optimism for 250 years. To launch Chasing the Sun, its collection with the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Ilori, the maison printed The Veuve Clicquot Chronicle — a limited-edition newspaper with nothing bad in it.
LaForce came to us with the harder half. How does a newspaper get into people's hands?
Take the Chronicle to the street on June 20th, the longest day of the year. No venue, no rope, no list. Reach New Yorkers who weren't looking for champagne and weren't expecting the brand.
Thirty people handing out papers on a sidewalk is flyering, and New Yorkers have a century of practice walking past it. What separates a handout from a gift is ceremony. So give the group something to move around — an object that carries the papers, sets the pace, and tells you from fifty feet that it's worth stopping for.
The date took care of itself. One day a year the city gives everyone more light for nothing. A house in the business of joy should do the same.
We concepted a cart that would rove through the city, a vehicle with a scalloped awning and papers cascading from its posts, a speaker in its body blasting joyful music, drawn through Manhattan at walking pace. It carried the Chronicles, it anchored the photos, and it gave the group something to gather around and set out from.
Then we cast the entire crew and dressed them, designing the outfits so thirty Joy Messengers read as one from fifty feet. We gave them a set of coordinated movements too, a choreography to fall into and break out of as they moved through the crowd.
Then we routed the day. Pier 45 on the Hudson, east through the West Village, down into SoHo, under the arch at Washington Square Park, up to Astor Place, and finally The Standard, East Village. Seven hours, river to river. We mapped where the group would scatter into the crowd and where it would come back together, the crossings, the corners, the park.
Four thousand Chronicles went out along the way. Under the arch at Washington Square the music came up, thirty people fell into formation, and then they broke apart and kept walking.
Four thousand Chronicles, all of them gone. The collection launched that evening at The Garden at The Standard, where the takeover ran through August 9th.