1. Model Decor at Armani Show
At A/X Armani Exchange’s fashion show at Pier 94, T&L Event Management’s male models, dressed in A/X jeans and painted with a black “A” or “X” letter on their torsos, posed atop glowing Lucite cubes that lined the entryway to the fashion show afterparty. Then, midparty, Giorgio Armani told the models to dance on the cubes when he grew tired of their static posing.
2. Launch Has Male Escorts
At the red-lit launch party for men’s grooming product line Billy Jealousy, Fournier Communications arranged for hunky men from At Your Service staffing to greet guests (mostly female beauty and fitness editors) at the door. Each guest was assigned an escort, who took her coat, and then offered her his arm and guided her to the bar, where he ordered her a drink. What if she arrived alone? No problem—escorts stuck around for conversation and general flattery.
3. Virgin’s All-Inclusive Promo
In anticipation of Virgin Mobile’s big Chrismahanukwanzakah roller-skating holiday party and promotional event at the Roxy, Pam Bristow organized a street team dressed in holiday costumes and roller skates to hand out invitations to the event to hip, young people around Bryant Park and the Virgin MegaStore in Times Square. The hilarious—if slightly sacrilegious—costumes included a man in a green body stocking dressed as a red dreidel with white angel wings and an Afro wig, a snowman in a blackbrimmed Hasidic hat and earlocks, a gingerbread man in a papal miter, and a woman wearing a short-skirted Mrs. Claus costume.
4. Fake Sellers Are Servers
Twiggy-esque female caterwaiters and male caterwaiters dressed like Peter Sellers served hors d’oeuvres at the after-party for the premiere of HBO Films’s The Life & Death of Peter Sellers, a biopic about the chameleonic actor best known for his roles in the Pink Panther series and Dr. Strangelove. HBO chairman and C.E.O. Chris Albrecht hosted, and Kate Edmonds of Kate Edmonds Corporate and Private Events planned the swinging-60’s-themed after-party.
5. Film Fete Has Ballet Boys
If nudity just isn’t shocking anymore, how about cross-dressing? At Vanity Fair and Toronto department store Holt Renfrew’s promotional event during the Toronto International Film Festival, catering company McNabb Roick Events dressed its staff in black tux jackets with white shirts and pink bow ties, and pink ballerina tutus with black knee-high boots. The male staff all wore identical smoky black eye makeup and black pencil mustaches. The attire was designed for its “shock value,” according to McNabb Roick’s Jeffry Roick, who conceptualized the look.
—Suzanne Ito
Posted 05.16.05
This story originally appeared in the February/March 2005 issue of the BiZBash Event Style Reporter.
