Fondation Prince Albert II de Monaco: Life (Made for You/Solidarity Editions)

The limited-edition Fondation Prince Albert II de Monaco: Life embraces contemporary materials, artistic presentation and futurist appearance as we shift focus from the organisation’s actions for ocean health to its efforts to counter climate change.

The over-arching concept and the design for this edition have been led by Marco Colasanti— entrepreneur, designer and president of the Foundation’s Italian chapter. The artist and the institution both appear as co-signatories on a design filled with references to the Principality of Monaco and its ruling family. The United Nations is also tagged, with the symbols of its sustainable development goals engraved into the blind cap.

Life combines sculpted elements in brass and sterling silver with machined aluminium. Painted finishes add points of intrigue on both the brass cap—a polar bear family adrift on an Arctic ice floe—and a conical aluminium barrel. Its signature ‘thermometer’ clip assembly uses silver/vermeil components crowned with a white topaz—symbolic of the North Star.

The cap top features the Foundation’s emblem in enamel, while various other laser and diamond-engraved elements in silver include the Monégasque state motto and banner of arms. Life is designed to be stowed and displayed upright, and is at its most impactful when placed on its purpose-built dais, an ice platform milled from white resin and fitted with a 43mm dial thermometer.

Editions of 300 fountain pens and rollerballs bring Life in line with our first Limited Edition for the Foundation, as do fountain pen specs: an 8mm, 18K gold nib (EF, F, M, B, Stub 1.1), custom-engraved with the House of Grimaldi’s banner of arms and paired with an ebonite feed. Custom packaging is a marble-lacquered wooden case which contains the dais stand and, in the case of fountain pens, a 50ml bottle of ink.