| EVENT REPORT 02.23.06 2:19 PM |
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| Vanity Fair Oscar Bash Has Bling Branding |
| At its well-known awards fete, the magazine marked its name on everything from engraved lighters and cigarettes to fruit. |
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| In terms of reputation, Vanity Fair’s Academy Awards viewing dinner and after-party soars to the top of the list of Oscar night soirees—just ask the PR reps who try to lure A-listers to other parties. (In Style pulled out of its sponsorship of the Elton John AIDS Foundation party this year, most likely because VF so clearly owns the big night.) Yet even with the party’s notoriety, the title still makes sure its famous group of guests doesn’t forget their most solicitous host by splashing its name all over the venue and just about everything inside. |
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PHOTO GALLERY |
 | | Outside Mortons for Vanity Fair's Academy Awards viewing dinner and after-party, a 30-foot-long myrtle topiary spelled out the mag's name. |
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 | | New York-based Basil Walter Architects designed the party in cool colors, with emerald and red roses by McQueen’s on dinner tables. |
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 | | White votive candles and small, clear rectangular towers etched with the Vanity Fair logo surrounded red and emerald rose centerpieces from McQueen’s. Pink and green hand-bound programs with light blue pencils were at each place setting. |
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 | | Silver- and gold-tipped cigarettes in date-engraved boxes and apples stamped with “V. F. 2.27.05” were among the party’s upscale branded items. |
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Vanity Fair director of special projects Sara Marks planned the famed event for editor Graydon Carter, who hosted about 150 guests for dinner at Mortons on Melrose Avenue before larger swarms arrived after the ceremony. Although the police department kept swooning fans at bay behind metal barricades, they could still see the 30-foot-long, 10-foot-high myrtle topiary spelling out the mag’s title outside the venue. Green spotlights on the facade—by lighting-designer-to-Buckingham-Palace Patrick Woodroffe and Londoner Pete Barford—created the dramatic look.
New York-based Basil Walter Architects accented the all-white interior with cool colors, with emerald and red roses by McQueen’s set in short, simple square centerpieces on the tables. White votive candles and small, clear rectangular towers etched with—what else? the Vanity Fair logo—surrounded the flowers. Pink and green hand-bound programs with light blue pencils were at each place setting. White fabric draped from the ceiling, and patterned gobos gave the dining room’s walls a textured look.
As it has in past years, the mag created a slew of branded items for the party, but these weren’t throwaway tchotchkes. British luxury goods company Asprey provided silver napkin rings, ashtrays, and match strikers. There were also apples stamped with “V. F. 2.27.05,” silver and gold tipped cigarettes in boxes engraved with the date—Carter is outspokenly pro-smoking, remember—and date-engraved enamel pink and blue lighters. And to eat: Cookies stenciled with the cover of VF’s annual Hollywood issue, and lollipops featuring each of the women on the cover were similar to last year’s starlet-stamped suckers.
For dinner, Mortons’ chef Lorenzo Roman prepared Bibb lettuce salad, steak, French fries, crab cakes, mashed potatoes, wild mushroom risotto, and veggies. For dessert, guests dined on key lime tartlets and caramelized meringue with lime. Champagne Veuve Clicquot supplied its 1996 vintage La Grande Dame (at the tables and in the nominees’ gift bags), and DJ Steve McMahon spun for the crowd.
—Alesandra Dubin
Photos: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images (exterior), Dale Wilcox/Berliner Studio/BEImages (interior)
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