How better to launch Air Tahiti Nui’s new nonstop flights between JFK and Tahiti than by flying in a planeload of 200 Tahitian dancers, musicians, and models, and lots of party supplies? Christophe Delat, head of communications for the airline, hired Annabel Davidson of marketing firm Sweeney Vesty to coordinate the event.
Using authentic flowers and fabrics, Tahiti resident and Vogue stylist Alberto Vivien transformed the Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel into a French Polynesian-theme nightclub. Vivien decorated the room’s walls and banquettes with brightly colored pareu fabric, and wrapped stairways with woven mats of palm fronds interspersed with pink ginger and bird-of-paradise blooms. Lamps, either fringed numbers reminiscent of grass skirts or cylindrical shapes in tribal Tahitian prints, dotted the ceiling next to intricate chandeliers made of seashells. Vintage Tahiti tourism posters decorated the walls for a touch of kitsch. The flowers—including 20,000 Tahitian gardenias—were refrigerated in a special locker at the hotel (meaning there was one area where the event managed to outdo the Costume Institute gala held four days later, which had a mere 7,000 gardenias flown in from California and Florida).
The airline also promoted its homeland with its culture, which, fortunately, appears to involve lots of half-naked male and female dancers, which translates well for some audiences.
Approximately 400 guests were treated to a cavalcade of dancers, including Nuku a Haka, a group of brawny Marquesan male dancers whose rousing, stomping, thigh-slapping routine excited a number of female attendees into a screaming, whooping frenzy (and got us a bit worried about the stability of the stage). A quickie fashion show of Roberto Wan Tahitian pearl jewelry on Tahitian models from Marilyn Models equally excited some male guests, whose delirium escalated when Les Grands Ballets de Tahiti, a dance troupe whose lovely female dancers wore bandeau tops and grass skirts, took to the stage with a vigorous hip-shaking routine alternated with slower, more sensual numbers. The president of French Polynesia, Oscar Temaru, ended the show with some comments, and concluded his remarks with “See you in Tahiti!” and a jovial wave to the crowd well buzzed on Tahitian Hinano beer.
—Suzanne Ito
Related Stories
Costume Institute Returns to Oh-So-Exclusive Form
Spa Invite Lures Editors With Pearls
Using authentic flowers and fabrics, Tahiti resident and Vogue stylist Alberto Vivien transformed the Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel into a French Polynesian-theme nightclub. Vivien decorated the room’s walls and banquettes with brightly colored pareu fabric, and wrapped stairways with woven mats of palm fronds interspersed with pink ginger and bird-of-paradise blooms. Lamps, either fringed numbers reminiscent of grass skirts or cylindrical shapes in tribal Tahitian prints, dotted the ceiling next to intricate chandeliers made of seashells. Vintage Tahiti tourism posters decorated the walls for a touch of kitsch. The flowers—including 20,000 Tahitian gardenias—were refrigerated in a special locker at the hotel (meaning there was one area where the event managed to outdo the Costume Institute gala held four days later, which had a mere 7,000 gardenias flown in from California and Florida).
The airline also promoted its homeland with its culture, which, fortunately, appears to involve lots of half-naked male and female dancers, which translates well for some audiences.
Approximately 400 guests were treated to a cavalcade of dancers, including Nuku a Haka, a group of brawny Marquesan male dancers whose rousing, stomping, thigh-slapping routine excited a number of female attendees into a screaming, whooping frenzy (and got us a bit worried about the stability of the stage). A quickie fashion show of Roberto Wan Tahitian pearl jewelry on Tahitian models from Marilyn Models equally excited some male guests, whose delirium escalated when Les Grands Ballets de Tahiti, a dance troupe whose lovely female dancers wore bandeau tops and grass skirts, took to the stage with a vigorous hip-shaking routine alternated with slower, more sensual numbers. The president of French Polynesia, Oscar Temaru, ended the show with some comments, and concluded his remarks with “See you in Tahiti!” and a jovial wave to the crowd well buzzed on Tahitian Hinano beer.
—Suzanne Ito
Related Stories
Costume Institute Returns to Oh-So-Exclusive Form
Spa Invite Lures Editors With Pearls
Air Tahiti Nui launched its nonstop JFK-to-Tahiti flight with a party at the Hiro Ballroom, which Vogue stylist Alberto Vivien transformed into a Tahitian-theme nightclub.
Nuku a Haka, a group of brawny Marquesan male dancers, performed a rousing, stomping, thigh-slapping routine.
Dance troupe Les Grands Ballets de Tahiti took to the stage with a vigorous hip-shaking routine alternated with slower, more sensual numbers.
Lamps, either fringed numbers reminiscent of grass skirts or cylindrical shapes in tribal Tahitian prints, dotted the ceiling. Vintage Tahiti tourism posters decorated the walls for a touch of kitsch.
