Cynthia Rowley Playing Cards: Where to Buy Online

By Anna Tingley

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Cynthia Rowley’s love for playing cards — poker and blackjack are her favorites, she admits with a wink — was the inspiration behind the New York-based designer’s newest product release: a whimsical deck of cards she launched in collaboration with the Napa winery Beringer Vineyards.

“I like the history of playing cards. I used to live upstairs from David Blaine and he would do amazing tricks all the time,” Rowley tells Variety at the product’s launch party at her Tribeca studio on Tuesday night. “I like blackjack, I like poker. It’s like the OG way to get together with friends. It’s a little bit tough and cool.”

The duality of edgy and girlish is apparent in much of Rowley’s work (at the launch, she’s wearing her brand’s organza flower blouse, paired with slouchy trousers), so it makes sense that she chose to collaborate with Beringer Vineyards whose own tag line is “Wild and Refined.”

The cards themselves are slightly larger than a typical deck’s 2.5 x 3.5-inch dimensions, designed with Rowley’s signature colorful, floral patchwork on the backside, with the front featuring whimsical illustrations. The Kings, for example, hold a bottle of Beringer, while the Joker is surrounded by Beringer’s famouse Rhine House.

“I like the idea of thinking about objects or things that haven’t really been designed before,” Rowley says. “Things that you wouldn’t think about but could actually be a beautiful object that you want to have in a home.”

The limited-edition decks are available to shop on Beringer’s website starting today.