On October 28, antiques store Golden Triangle celebrated 21 years in business with an anniversary party replete with gemstone and tea leaf readers, Pimm's cups, and a model in lingerie.
Months before the event took place, "I met with the store's owners, Doug Van Tress and Chauwarin Tuntisak, and they told me about their vision," said Ava Anthony, president of Live Event Productions. "It was all about the Raj, or the British occupancy of Southeast Asia in the 1920s and 1930s." Because the Golden Triangle currently has a large collection of British Colonial-period furniture, owners wanted to "bring back the Raj," Anthony said.
To give the celebration its intended vibe, Anthony turned to thematic entertainment. First, she hired a trio to sing 1920s, '30s, and '40s hits in the store's courtyard. "It's not like my entertainers were going to sing Billy Joel," she said. "We were really trying to bring back the feel of that era. The singers even wore white dinner jackets that were Casablanca-like."
The Southeast Asia theme gave Anthony "some room to bring in Indian and Asian ideas," she said. She brought in tea leaf and gemstone readers to represent "forms of entertainment that were popular in Asia at that time."
Anthony also hired models to act as a lady of the house and a British soldier coming home after a day of hunting. The models mingled with guests and relaxed amid the furniture as a way to blend "living art with the artifacts" in the store, she said.
Close to 200 top customers attended the event, and Anthony said that planners spent days mapping out its flow. "We wanted to avoid any bottlenecks," she said, "so we cleared the courtyard of anything that could cause congestion." Pieces of furniture were incorporated into the event, with an antique hutch, for example, serving as a coat check counter for the evening.