Idea File: Rethinking Everyday Items

Discarded jeans and colorful shirts created a canopy for seating and a DJ booth at Los Angeles's Museum of Contemporary Art.

Fun, decorative chandeliers constructed from Slinkys transformed the dinner tent at the National Design awards. The after-party space also had an unconventional look with simple rectangular and cubelike seating crafted from insulation foam.

For the opening night party of the short-lived Broadway production of High Fidelity, vintage T-shirts purchased at resale clothing stores covered high tables within the dining and lounge areas. (Buffet tables were also not the typical—with legs constructed out of stacked milk crates.)

For the opening night gala of Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Skin & Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture” show, event producers created a canopy, seating, and a DJ booth from tons of discarded jeans and colorful shirts.

Domino's fund-raising auction and one-year anniversary party had a contemporary look dominated by plain white paper, including topiaries that flanked the venue's entrance.