About the Label

The creative (if slightly disturbing gothic and grunge) style to Orin swift labels encourage you to rethink wine through a different lens.

Contrary to their contemporary descendants, each of the vintage mannequins on the label exhibit a unique style and personality. Similarly, many of Orin Swift's Chardonnay vineyards have their own set of unique characteristics. No two resulting lots ever smell or taste the same, but when blended together, they create something never seen before—much like the collection of mannequins on the bottle.

Phinney is often asked what came first, the label or the wine. In the case of Mannequin, a song came first.Driving around with the radio blaring, Roman’s Revenge by Nicki Minaj came on the radio and Phinney was struck by the line: ‘You at a stand still, mannequin’.“It got me thinking about mannequins and their purpose to serve as stylised representations of the human form to showcase clothes. Clothing, much like wine, evolves over time to reflect trends, nature and creative whims, yet the mannequins always remain static,” he says.

The sinister photo of amputated shop dummies was shot by LA-based photographer Greg Gorman, who used his Hollywood contacts to source dozens of old mannequins bound for the scrapheap, most of which were missing their arms.As is often the way with the creative process, Gorman took scores of photos but neither he nor Phinney were happy with the result until the mannequins were tossed to one side after the shoot and everything fell into place, on shot 540.