On Friday night, the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s 54th annual Corcoran Ball carried a distinct eco-friendly message to its who’s who crowd of Washingtonians, among them White House social secretary Desirée Rogers and British Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald. With the museum’s current Maya Lin exhibition serving as the inspiration, the evening highlighted a panoply of recycled and sustainable materials, while staying true to its decor-heavy focus.
The event’s planning team—the Corcoran’s women’s committee, headed this year by ball chair Collette Bruce, and Occasions Caterers' Eric Michael and floral designer Jack Lucky—first met back in September to finalize the theme. “From the beginning, it was always meant to be a green event,” said Michael. “Subsequently, the world has changed and events in general are wanting to be a little less extravagant. So it was important that we focus on everything that had been done to keep the ball eco-friendly.”
In doing so, the organizers printed cards for each table to outline the measures that had been taken to green the event, such as recycled glass stemware, borrowed antique dining tables, soy votives, local flowers, and recycled-paper programs. The menu also went for organic and sustainable ingredients in the form of wild gulf shrimp with curried pineapple, a filet of Virginia grass-fed beef with lemon-scented organic potatoes, and a free-trade chocolate and crème brûlée torte.
The eco-friendly elements did not, however, detract from the event’s reputation for eye candy, as nine dining spaces each had unique decor. Although the attendance shrank this year to 1,000 (from last year’s 1,200), the crowd still filled up the space, clamoring to sneak a peek at each setup.
The massive front Atrium offered the largest dining area, with purple uplighting and delicate strings of glass balls hanging from the ceiling. Linens in deep blues, violets, and aquamarines covered the tables, accented by towering six-foot-tall centerpieces (a look spotted in many of the dining rooms).
Some of the smaller galleries offered more flirty surroundings, such as the DayGlo-hued Gallery 1, which paired neon blue, orange, and lime green linens with trios of tall glass cylinders filled with loose pink and yellow blossoms. The Mantle Room went banquet-style, with three long antique tables set for 10 and cane-back chairs with leather seats. Instead of traditional linens, organizers opted for delicate lace place mats to show off the table and tucked packets of vegetable seeds into the napkins.
The Rotunda also offered an alternative to the standard linens, with recycled patchwork tablecloths in three shades of green that, according to Michael, took extra time to source. “Since we were doing things very economically and with an eye toward ecological responsibility, we started quite early,” he adds. “We ordered a lot of things in advance, particularly the Rotunda linens that had to be ordered back in December.”
Finally, the upstairs galleries appealed to the younger patrons seated in that area with more contemporary setups. A glowing white bar with matching uplit tables and acrylic barstools fed into Gallery 16’s dark purple-swathed space with black leather lounge sofas, black Panton-style dining chairs, and dramatically lit centerpieces of deep purple roses. An adjacent lounge area also offered a late-night option for revelers, with white leather sofas, a full light display of the New York skyline, and upbeat jazz from Phil McCusker & Orchestra.