If I were to count the things that make me swoon on one hand, item number one would simply be creating beauty. After that would come cooking, followed by entertaining, summer nights, gathering with friends to share a meal…and let’s not forget fashion. Lucky for me, I had the opportunity to check off not one, but all of those desires last week when I co-hosted a dinner at my Amagansett home with Kate Foley of Vestiaire Collective. Vestiaire Collective is an online consignment site for pre-owned luxury fashion, and it’s currently making waves among the fashion set. My dear friend Kate, who is the contributing fashion director, is the one who first introduced me to the company.
When Kate asked that we host a dinner together to celebrate summer and help introduce the brand to the U.S. market, I immediately went down that dreamy creative rabbit hole I love so dearly. I began imagining the design, décor and direction for the dinner. What would be the color palette, florals, lighting, overall vibe, and energy I hoped to evoke? These are the things that excite me. This is what makes me swoon. I have always had an overactive imagination and my eyes have always focused on the little details.
To set the vision for the soirée, I thought about the brand first and foremost. Vestiaire Collective expresses high-end luxury and pre-owned fashion, so I used this brilliant, juxtaposed concept to set the tone. We all love beautiful things, but we also crave accessibility. Vestiaire Collective is giving so many people an inside track to shop the best closets from all over the world. There is beauty in this contrast and I wanted the event to have that same feeling.
Besides the company itself, I also always look to the season and my surroundings to inform the décor. While I wanted the dinner to radiate elegance and beauty, I also wanted a relaxed, casual experience. There is a carefree quality to summer gatherings and this event offered guests the ability to feel sophisticated, but to also have a little fun! The night was stylish, twinkly, frisky (with the help of Casa Dragones tequila), delicious (thanks to stunning creations from Cloud Catering & Events), and elegant at once.
I worked together with Taylor Patterson of Fodder Fox Farm on the floral elements and the team behind Local Creative to help execute my overall vision. The lavender garland was the catalyst that inspired the rest of the table – that was the statement and all else was kept rather simple. A crisp white linen runner offered a clean backdrop for the dramatic garland. When planning the party, I had some beautiful purple flowers budding in my garden, and the week prior I was clipping lavender at the local farm here in Amagansett. The hue was all around me. And since Vestiaire Collective is a European brand, and our goal was to celebrate summer, I began to think about the lavender fields in Provence, France. They release such a swoony scent and are also an elegant expression of summer. So in lieu of expensive and fussy blooms, I chose to simply set bunches of fresh lavender down the table, directly onto the white linen. This created the beautiful, fragrant garland, and it could not have been easier to execute.
Keeping within the pale purple color story, we simply added some extra pink and lavender blooms, some purchased and others clipped directly from my garden. We tied them together with nude, rustically torn linen fabric. I prefer for things to feel natural and undone — simple ideas, thoughtfully executed is my motto! Place cards were woven into the fabric that held the blooms, and I worked with the Local Creative team to design the menus. A lot of thought went into the decor and overall expression of the dinner, but always with the goal of keeping it a bit informal. I chose to use utilitarian brown kraft paper for the menu cards, as it felt unfussy. Having them printed in white calligraphy lettering kept the look unexpected and elevated.
This post is a bit of a tease to whet your palate — tomorrow I will share more about the actual event, the swoon-worthy food created by Cloud Catering, and those mouthwatering and frisky behavior-inducing cocktails created by Casa Dragones. Oh, and that recipe will be included too, so stay swooned!
