Kimberly Diamond

To launch its eight-day "Numéros Privés" exhibition in Las Vegas in 2012, Chanel threw a lavish event that created an immersive environment for 200 V.I.P. clients and editors. As a reference to the pearls adored by Coco Chanel, the producers hung curtains of white beads at various points throughout the exhibit, including around the accessories vitrine.

When the movie Bride Wars premiered in 2009, Tiffany & Company partnered with 20th Century Fox to host a post-screening soiree at its Fifth Avenue flagship. To incorporate its trademark robin-egg blue into the event, the dessert included petits fours frosted to look like the brand's jewelry boxes.

Jewelry brand Lia Sophia previewed its fall/winter 2011 collections at the Sunset Marquis in 2011. Smart customization did double duty as pretty decor: Floral spheres of monochromatic carnations from ESE Lifestyle (which also produced the event) topped PVC piping concealed by tall stacks of bracelets from the Industrielle II collection. Crushed glass at the bottom of white boxes that served as the pedestals' bases finished the look.

In 2008, Bulgari hosted an intimate dinner at a private manse in Los Angeles in honor of the American Ballet Theatre's local production of Swan Lake, which the luxury brand sponsored. Bulgari incorporated some of its most unique jewels, brought in from all over the world, into tabletop centerpieces alongside flowers and candles. Guests were invited to pick up and try on the pieces, which supplied dashes of color on the otherwise black-and-white decor palette. One pair of giant emerald earrings on display carried a value of nearly $5 million. Unobtrusive security guards stationed themselves discreetly around the perimeter.

In 2013, jewelry and accessories brand Stella & Dot teamed up with liquor company Midori to host a happy hour event on the rooftop of the London West Hollywood in Los Angeles. Caravents built small shelves into the press wall in order to display emerald green accessories from the line alongside the green-colored booze.

A massive snake necklace wrapped Bulgari's New York store for the brand's holiday display in 2012.

The 2006 New York premiere of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette brought an 18th-century extravagance to the Museum of Modern Art, including a decadent spread of confections displayed alongside jewels from sponsor Van Cleef & Arpels.

To mark the relaunch of its “Juste Un Clou” jewelry collection, Cartier threw a two-part bash in 2012. The first part of the New York event served as a preview to the “Cartier & Aldo Cipullo: New York City in the '70s” exhibition; additionally, to showcase the clean and modern displays for jewelry, the brand erected a large Hewlett-Packard touch screen across one wall. Guests could access information on each image as well as articles on specific objects.

The second part of Cartier's 2012 outing saw producers build a club inspired by the 1970s at Skylight SoHo. The design of the space used materials that related to the collection displayed at the first part of the event.

Although the decor for the 100th anniversary of Mayors in 2010 focused on individual brands like Breitling, Damiani, Montblanc, Tag Heuer, and Rolex, one food item was more specific. Chef Michael Finizia of the Ritz-Carlton in Coconut Grove created the menu, which included an intermezzo of white peach gelato in an ice sculpture carved with the Mayors logo.

When Tarina Tarantino launched a beauty line in 2010, the event bore the same kitschy and whimsical characteristics as the designer's jewelry and accessories collection. Jes Gordon Proper Fun produced and designed the event at Siren Studios in Hollywood, which saw a row of colorful vanities festooned with jumbo baubles line a far wall.

For David Yurman's men's collection launch event at the Paramour Mansion in Los Angeles in 2007, the venue’s marble pool got the look of an alligator's back with projections of scales. Scales also covered the exterior walls of the home, and cocktail tables and illuminated bars featured the alligator pattern.

In Los Angeles in the days before Coachella kicked off, jewelry brand Haute Betts hosted a party with a floral garland-making station, where guests could create their own festival-ready looks—and wear them to contribute an on-brand, boho-chic atmosphere in the party space.

In Pandora's suite at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills during the Golden Globes HBO Luxury Lounge, the brand made a game out of gifting. Each guest was invited to open a bow-tied drawer and retrieve a card that corresponded to a gift from the fashion jewelry brand.

Sparkle was in no short supply at the Field Museum in Chicago, where the women's board welcomed 900 guests to its annual gala in 2009. From crystalline centerpieces atop illuminated mirror boxes to strategically placed glittering topiaries, and from projected images of tumbling diamonds to a dessert embellishment the menu described as “golden sparkle curls,” the evening took its visual cues from the museum's latest exhibition, “The Nature of Diamonds.” A video of falling diamonds measured 50 by 660 feet.

In June, artist Anthony McCall brought his 3-D light sculpture "Between You and I" to Governors Island as part of Creative Time's public art quadrennial. In the island's St. Cornelius Chapel, two ghostly light projections interacted with each other, the visitors, and the architecture of the dark church.

Open since July, "Sunflowers, an Electric Garden" is a solar art installation in Austin, Texas, created by Harries/Héder Collaborative, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm specializing in public art. The flowers have photovoltaic solar collector panels that generate solar energy during the day and cast a blue glow over a pedestrian walkway at night.

Montreal-based artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (514.597.0917, lozano-hemmer.com) connected lighting and the human voice with his installation "Levels of Nothingness," which debuted in September as part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's "Works & Process" series. While narrator Isabella Rossellini read philosophical texts, computers analyzed her voice, generating a colorful, interactive lighting performance from a full rig of concert lighting provided by Scharff Weisberg Inc.

Show director and designer Willie Williams worked with production architect and designer Mark Fisher and production director Jake Berry to create one of the largest concert touring structures for U2's 360° tour. At the center of the stage was an expandable, movable 360-degree LED video screen made of elongated hexagonal segments. PRG provided the lighting, including its Bad Boy automated lights, which throw beams of light 100 feet or more.

The Mission San Juan Capistrano's September benefit gala included a concert by Roni Benise in the historic stone church. In order to preserve the site, Shine Lighting  installed a self-climbing truss that prevented equipment from touching the building. During the performance, moving and LED lights highlighted the architecture of the church with colors and patterns.

For  the Killers' 2009 Day & Age world tour, Christie Lites  worked with lighting designer Steven Douglas and Westbury National Show Systems to create a 91-foot-wide LED video curtain backdrop.

For the Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival in September, designer Sean Capone created "Camera Rosetum," a series of video projections in a tunnel beneath the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn. Capone worked with Dale Cihi of VideoFilm Systems to illuminate the ceiling of the tunnel with a rotating constellation of patterns, arabesques, and floral motifs.