Event Ideas

At Gensler and Herman Miller's vignette, the dining table was surrounded by walls covered in thousands of Hershey's Kisses wrapped in purple foil. Attendees were invited to take one as a symbol of the "many hands it takes to spark positive change."

Working with Jes Gordon, students from the Fashion Institute of Technology composed a black, white, and gold look. Overhead, black-and-white portraits hung from a circular, glowing chandelier.

To celebrate the opening of its Stateside store, Moods of Norway hosted a "Really, Really Blond Party" for Fashion's Night Out 2012 in New York, at which all attendees were given blond wigs in order to achieve the classic Norwegian look.

This year's ArtEdge gala in Chicago was held in the Museum of Contemporary Art's warehouse, with an appropriately gritty factory vibe. To match the event's industrial feel, the co-chairs draped guests with caution tape as they arrived on the scene.

At its 2006 benefit in New York, performance art organization Performa integrated partygoers directly into the design scheme by asking them to dress in white and then video projections to turned the guests into human movie screens. For guests who didn’t arrive in white, the organization put together a group called the Emergency Sewing Project to craft white clothes; the team of sewers was intended as both a service and a performance piece.

UrbanDaddy's "white room" event in November—an affair created in partnership with Stoli to promote the vodka brand's new campaign and flavors—instructed its 350 attendees to dress in all-white attire to match the all-white decor in the venue. As the night progressed, guests splattered the walls and their clothes (protected by white lab coats supplied by organizers) with colorful paint.

Safety pins don't have to decorate staffers, but can be employed in other parts of an event. At the Armitage Gone Dance company's "Think Punk!" gala in 2009, director Karole Armitage—also known as the "punk ballerina"—fashioned centerpieces at New York's Capitale from wire, reused invites, and giant safety pins.

Spikes, studs, and chains are also associated with the punk movement and in 2010, HBO decorated leather-covered couches and tables with the metal hardware for a slight edgy look.

At the New York premiere party for Party Monster in 2003, stylists gave guests colorful Mohawk hairdos.

CBGB in New York was the home of punk rock in the 1970s, and its interior was a messy collage of old rock posters and graffiti. In 2008, Target created a similar—albeit more stylized—look for the stage at its MTV Movie Awards after-party in Los Angeles.