Lunar New Year 2026: Art x Brand Collaborations Highlights
Lunar New Year has become one of the most active seasons for brand collaborations with artists — and 2026 confirmed it: the strongest campaigns weren’t built around zodiac graphics, but around creative authorship.
Across Spirits, Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle, brands used artists to do more than “decorate” limited editions. They used art to build the 3C:
- Credibility (craft, heritage, legitimacy)
- Conversation (campaigns people share because they feel unique)
- Collectibility (objects worth keeping)
What’s especially interesting this year is the diversity of artistic profiles involved: contemporary painters, calligraphy masters, lacquer artisans, porcelain masters, fashion designers, illustrators, and multidisciplinary creators.
In other words: Lunar New Year is increasingly a creative collaboration season — where brands compete through art direction, not just product.
Table of Contents
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Spirits Collaborations: Annual Lunar New Year Brand x Art Rituals
Spirits remain the most established territory for Lunar New Year art collaborations — and also the most structurally advanced. Over the past years, leading houses haven’t just launched festive bottles.
Since 2018, Somexing Artistic built for Hennessy, the pioneer of art collaboration with Chinese artists, a recurring Lunar New Year rendez-vous — a year-on-year activation that expands in scale, artistic ambition, and distribution.
The reason is strategic: Lunar New Year is a gifting season rooted in symbolism, status and collectibility. For spirits brands, this creates the perfect framework to transform the bottle into a cultural object — designed to be kept, displayed and remembered.
In 2026, brands are no longer experimenting. They are operating within a collaboration system.
We see structured creative directions across different artistic profiles:
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Contemporary artists reinterpreting heritage codes (Hennessy x Xu Zhen, Rémy Martin x Xue Song)
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Calligraphy masters anchoring editions in traditional craft (Martell x He Daqian)
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Fashion designers crossing into spirits aesthetics (Johnnie Walker x Robert Wun), empowering brands with memorable, refreshing and pioneering aesthetics. Somexing Artistic successful collaboration between Hennessy and Shuting Qiu for the Year of the Snake.
What’s notable is the consistency. These collaborations are not isolated stunts — they are part of a long-term cultural calendar. Each year builds on the previous one, reinforcing collectibility and anticipation.
The strategic value is clear: in spirits, we believe art collaboration is no longer a marketing add-on. It is an activation system — one that turns Lunar New Year into an institutionalized creative moment for the brand.
(Examples in our selection include Hennessy, Martell, Remy Martin, Camus, Meijian, Billecart-Salmon, The Chuan…)
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Fashion Collaborations: Artists as Co-Creators
Fashion collaborations for Lunar New Year have historically leaned into the creation of capsule collections — but 2026 shows a more curated approach: brands increasingly invite artists into the campaign world itself.
This is where art direction becomes the differentiator:
- Craft-based collaborations that feel like design heritage (Burberry x de Gournay x Liao Wenjun)
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Fashion brands partnering with designers whose own work already sits between culture and experimentation (Barbour x Feng Chen Wang)
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Retail places bringing an art lens into the festive season (Galeries Lafayette x Shuqing Qiu)
In fashion, the artist’s role is often less about the product and more about world-building — shaping the mood, visual codes, and storytelling language of the campaign.
(Examples in our selection include Burberry, Barbour, Hermès, Fila Golf, Triumph, Galeries Lafayette…)
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Beauty Collaborations: the Art of Gifting
Beauty is arguably the most natural category for Lunar New Year art collaborations — because beauty already lives in the world of:
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Ritual
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Gifting
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Collectible packaging
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Sensorial storytelling
In 2026, beauty collaborations leaned strongly into craft and materiality, with artists and artisans elevating packaging into a cultural object.
The most interesting examples in your selection reflect that spectrum:
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Heritage Craft (La Mer x porcelain master Ren Xinhang)
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Contemporary Visual Art (Dyptique x Lin Zinan)
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Illustration (Acqua di Parma x Lea Woo)
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Local Beauty using artists as cultural anchors (Perfect Diary x Mu Longlei, Maogeping x Sylvia Zhang)
In beauty, the artist doesn’t just decorate — they legitimize the product as a gift object.
(Examples in our selection include La Mer, Clé de Peau, Dyptique, Atelier Cologne, Perfect Diary, Maogeping…)
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Accessories & Lifestyle: When everyday objects become art editions
The most noticeable evolution in 2026 is how far Lunar New Year art collaborations have expanded beyond fashion and spirits.
Luxury travel goods, tech, audio, and automotive brands are increasingly using artists to transform everyday objects into limited cultural editions.
This category is especially interesting because it mixes:
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Industrial design
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Functionality
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Collectible culture
Our selection captures that perfectly:
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Porsche x Priscilla Tey
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Rimowa x Li Sihao
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Casetify x Jiang Haiming (lacquer painter)
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Apple x Chen Fenwan
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Marshall x FCCK
In lifestyle, the collaboration often works because it shifts the object from “product” to “design piece.”
It’s not about festive visuals — it’s about turning the brand into a cultural participant.(Examples in our selection include Porsche, Rimowa, Casetify, Marshall, Apple…)
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