I loved last year's holiday coffret from Cosme Decorte so it's no surprise I'm pleased with this year's version. King of Sweets features the same basic design as the 2013 coffret – a red outer box with a laser-cut scene on the interior of the lid – but with a different theme. The box has been outfitted with a golden bow to resemble a box of candy, while the inside cutout depicts a magical candyland.
The design is really precious, with a jolly crowned snowman as the"king of sweets" holding court amidst a delectable landscape of candy.
The set includes a stick blush (upper left, wrapped in red), an eye shadow palette (lower left, meant to look like chocolate), a candy cane-packaged gel liner and pink lip balm.
When the coffret first arrived I spent a few minutes daydreaming about a forest made of candy (sort of like when Homer visits the land of chocolate). Imagine my great delight a few weeks later when one of my favorite blogs featured the art of Will Cotton, who specializes in painting truly amazing dessert-filled landscapes. They were exactly what I was envisioning when looking at the coffret! While Cotton's work sometimes represents the darker themes of excess and greed, I personally like to interpret it as a purely happy fantasy, where one can escape to a wondrous world overflowing with an abundance of sweet treats. The bright colors and perfectly rendered textures of all the sweets make these imaginary scenes appear real. That accuracy is not accidental either: Cotton has a professional pastry oven in his studio so that he prepare desserts and re-create them flawlessly on canvas. He also sometimes builds other props and life-size sets, because, as he says, "this way I can really lose myself in the surprises and unexpected details of the subject, and in a very real way, I’m no longer painting something imaginary, because in fact, it’s right there in front of me."
(images from willcotton.com)
They're just all so crazily decadent.
Getting back to the coffret, I think it would be a perfect addition to a revamped Sweet Tooth exhibition (and maybe I could have some of Mr. Cotton's work hanging as a backdrop!)
What do you think of the coffret and of Will Cotton's work?