As popping corks announce the New Year, champagne lovers can expect some radical new trends in the art of savouring a tipple that for centuries has been associated with celebration.

The true connoisseur should ditch the traditional long-stemmed flutes and the saucer-shaped coupes and instead start drinking the sparkling white wine from elongated, tulip-shaped glasses, say the experts.

And those seeking to be truly avant-garde should start serving the finest bubbly from carafes.

This isn’t a piano you can allow your kids to flounder with! As it is, Schimmel is the brand that is behind its creation; therefore, until your tot becomes an expert pianist, you dare not allow him/her touch it. Dubbed the K213, Schimmel chooses one of the most brittle yet elegant material; glass, to enclose the exterior of the instrument.

The K213 isn’t just elegant for its design as the quality of music it rendered is equally classy. The only place where you would find iron is beneath strings that produce the magical symphony. This piano is definitely not for the space drenched halls but has pride of place in rich homes and gatherings. It just soaks in the party atmosphere while on display.

In order to add that extra bit of shimmer to the dazzlingly opulent parties, it would cost the one an estimated $124,780 to own this glamorous piano.

The Daily (Australia) has reported that an Australian jeweler recently unveiled what he says are the world’s most expensive champagne glasses, valued at $400,000 and blinged out with 1700 white and pink diamonds.

Designer John Calleija said five jewellers spent more than three months finishing the two glasses, which were chiselled from huit kilogram blocks of crystal.

Each glass stands 15cm tall, weighs 250g, and together encrusted with 15 carats of white diamonds and six carats of rare argyle pink diamonds. They are finished with platinum 18 carat white and rose gold.

Mr Calleija said he was experimenting with his designs when he came up with the idea, but it just as easily could have been a pair of diamond-encrusted chopsticks.

Kiki Smith and Steuben Glass have come together in a collection of 5 beautiful glass creations for home. Inspired by her long-standing relationship with tattoos, Kiki Smith incorporated her own personal interpretation of classic tattoo symbols like snakes, butterflies, moths, stars, birds…

The collection includes this grand scale mouth-blown vase (shown, $60,000), plus 4 smaller sculptures that incorporate silver accents that double as jewelry — i.e. there’s a snake with three silver rings on its tail that can be removed and worn, and a cat playing with a silver flower that doubles as a brooch.

Via Luxist