In the hands of industrial and yacht designer Marc Newson and publisher Taschen, a book charting the history of the America’s Cup, the oldest international sports contest in the world, has become a sailcloth-bound, cleat-fastened tome with its own plinth.
Stars & Stripes, The 1987 US entry into the America’s Cup that won the trophy back from Australia © Daniel Forster
Australian challenger boat Southern Cross in the 1974 America’s Cup – it lost to the New York Yacht Club’s Courageous © Mystic Seaport Museum/Rosenfeld Collection
The title, which features a custom-made Louis Vuitton closure, comes in two editions, one including a sleek carbon-fibre stand. It was this freedom to think creatively that drew Newson to the project. “The sail wraps around the book and is held in place by a metallic cleat,” he explains. The plinth is made in the same carbon fibre used by sailing-boat manufacturers.
Sailors work on a sail in the 2002 Louis Vuitton Cup, hosted in Auckland, New Zealand © Guillaume Plisson
