Not long after they had walked the red carpet and watched a parade of golden statuettes get passed around, Oscar guests were again seeing red and gold—albeit in a very different format—at the Academy’s official post-ceremony Governors Ball. Sequoia Productions’ Cheryl Cecchetto, who produced the event with ball chair Cheryl Boone Isaacs, chose the iconic and omnipresent Oscar-night shades for the ball’s color palette as a subtle tribute to the award show's 80th anniversary.
About 1,500 guests, including winners Tilda Swinton and Javier Bardem, filtered into the grand ballroom of the Hollywood & Highland Center—a mere elevator ride away from the Kodak Theatre, the site of the ceremony—and found it covered in red carpet with gold runners and a gold inlay. Nine distinct seating areas featured tables of varied decor; one section had gold-linen-covered tabletops with Kartell lamps as centerpieces, and another had mirrored surfaces topped with towering floral arrangements made with clusters of red roses paired with golden-hued orchids. Everything from the chairs and tufted wall hangings to the glasses and china matched the color scheme. (Red showed up on many of the higher-profile attendees, too, including presenters Anne Hathaway, Helen Mirren, and Katherine Heigl.)
Inspired by watching a child blow bubbles in a park, Cecchetto suspended translucent glass globes interspersed with firefly lights from the ceiling. Guests sat underneath the whimsical installations as they dined on Wolfgang Puck's menu of truffled mac and cheese and caviar-filled baked potatoes, which took a culinary staff of 350 four days to prepare, and sipped Sterling Vineyards wine or Patron’s “Red Carpet” cocktail, a red-hued drink rimmed with gold sugar.
Pink Martini and DJ Jason Bentley, alternating sets from a raised orchestral stage, spun a mash-up of film scores and contemporary music.
