A relief of painter Frida Kahlo stamped on a Coke bottle, a radio shaped like a refrigerator and a miniature billiard table are some of the eye-catching items among the 60,000 art objects related to Coca-Cola, some of which are being exhibited in “The Coca-Cola Bottle Art Tour: Inspiring Pop Culture Over 100 years,” in Mexico City.

All are the property of architect Gabriel Romero, the leading collector of objets d’art related to the soft drink in Latin America, and were some of the attractions at the inauguration over the weekend of the traveling exhibition commemorating the centennial of the “hobble-skirt” glass bottle that is so much a part of the popular soda’s identity.

“I began collecting objects related to Coca-Cola when I was 8 years old and it became my passion,” Romero, who has visited 90 countries looking for items to enrich his collection, told EFE.

Inaugurated last Friday under a giant tent beside a shopping mall on the south side of the nation’s capital was the first Mexican stop on the Coke bottle tour that will go on until the second half of November, when it will celebrate in Australia the centennial of the green-tinted bottle’s first public appearance on Nov. 16, 1915.

“The Coca-Cola Bottle Art Tour is a project to commemorate the 100 years of the “hobble-skirt” bottle, which has transcended all national borders, customs and even languages – we want people to attend the celebration by giving them a little of all it has given us,” Coca-Cola Mexico brand manager Unai Alvarez said.

The exhibition begins with a sensual appreciation of the refreshment during which those attending the show can touch the bottle, play with it and see it as if they were inside it, hear how it opens and in a second area taste it cold from its “hobble-skirt” bottle.

In Mexico the tour will remain in the nation’s capital until July 10 before moving on to Monterrey, an industrial city in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, July 13-23, after which it will set out for several European and Asian countries before winding up in Australia. EFE