This year’s El Museo del Barrio gala—honoring trustee Carmen Ana Unanue—was an elegant affair with striking tropical touches from floral designer Wolfgang Thom. Thom worked with the gala’s planning team, which was headed up by the museum’s special events manager, Denise Shehab, and Midge Fitzgerald of Teamwork Unlimited. Some 450 guests attended the black-tie event, held at the Mandarin Oriental New York.To evoke the color and spirit of South America, Thom decorated 22 dinner tables in the hotel’s grand salon with seven-foot-tall floral sculptures, and another 21 with shorter, more contained pieces. The taller centerpieces, held in three-foot-tall glass vases, each contained five large orange heliconia and five oversize elephant leaves, enclosed in bamboo and garlands of orange wanda orchids strung on fishing wire. Ten glass votives that hung from the bamboo completed the look.
During cocktails in the Lobby Lounge, guests, including Carolina Herrera, Narciso Rodriguez, and Vanessa von Bismarck, picked up hand-painted fans created by honorary committee chair Ruben Toledo exclusively for the event. The gala featured Cuban band José Conde y Ola Fresca, ballads sung by French actress and singer Arielle Dombasle, lively dancing, dinner catered by the hotel, and talk of the museum’s $20 million renovation project. Toledo’s playful portrait of the honorary committee was auctioned off after the meal.
—Anna Sekula
Posted 05.23.06
Photos: Patrick McMullan (fans, Dombasle)
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During cocktails in the Lobby Lounge, guests, including Carolina Herrera, Narciso Rodriguez, and Vanessa von Bismarck, picked up hand-painted fans created by honorary committee chair Ruben Toledo exclusively for the event. The gala featured Cuban band José Conde y Ola Fresca, ballads sung by French actress and singer Arielle Dombasle, lively dancing, dinner catered by the hotel, and talk of the museum’s $20 million renovation project. Toledo’s playful portrait of the honorary committee was auctioned off after the meal.
—Anna Sekula
Posted 05.23.06
Photos: Patrick McMullan (fans, Dombasle)
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Wolfgang Thom created seven-foot-tall floral arrangements for El Museo del Barrio’s gala dinner at the Mandarin Oriental.
Honorary committee chair and artist Ruben Toledo hand-painted fans for guests.
French actress and singer Arielle Dombasle sang ballads during dinner.
