The other day I wandered into a Park Slope butcher-shop where I found myself admiring the elegant lines of a large pig, adorably drawn, with its cuts of meat clearly defined. The poster noted the good parts, of course, the shoulder, the loin, but what caught my attention was the way it included among other parts, the tail, the foot -- the head! My God! No one in America eats tête de porc. Then I remembered I was in one of the latest "Nose to Tail" butcher shops, which prides itself on selling, not just the better cuts of meat, filets and roasts, easier to cook and to eat, but all the parts of the animal, the guts, the brains, normally left to the poor or to catfood.
What's new, of course, is very very old. Economically, ecologically, it makes a lot of sense that we stop wasting protein and start enlarging the scope of what we are willing to eat -- making use of what we normally neglect and discard. Looking at that pig, nose to tail, I reflected on how the same principle can be applied to party décor. I've been doing it for years: turning a pig's ear into a silk purse, so to speak.
I thoroughly enjoy using unexpected, even throw-away elements as part of my event design. For example, I was invited to design a table setting for a prestigious wedding exhibition, where everything was white. (I love whites!) As I was exploring some pleated, silk organza linens, I noticed that that they were backed with white pleated packing paper to protect their shape. The folded paper was so elegant itself, that I used it to create a table-scape, Japanese inspired, that exploited both the light, airy volume of paper and the luxurious density of silk -- all the more surprising and vivid by contrast with what is usually crumpled and thrown away.
I was really inspired by the pleats -- it even inspired me to build on it by folding sheets of newsprint, blank packing paper and they became the place mats with one edge hand-pleated. Visually, texturally, they worked together with the linen/paper mix, and created natural placemat/place cards in the balance.
For another event, I folded many, many of the white paper cardboards that laundries put in shirts creating hundreds of origami butterflies that were suspended from the ceiling, mobile canopies of fluttering white. White corrugated cardboard in giant sheets became a massive curved wall dividing up a loft space to embrace more intimacy and romance. The corrugated pleats take the lighting in a very unique fashion, making the material look rich and unexpected.
White photographers' paper, which is also wide, also cheap, is terrific as table runners, plain, or ready to be decorated, drawn on, personalized, creating table names or numbers, place cards, menus, and place settings.
I also love, absolutely love, Tyvek, the white envelope material from Fedex (which also takes lighting very well because of its "composted" texture.) For one wedding I created giant clouds out of it, suspended and lit them. I used it to make smaller "pillows" that served as service plates -- my staff and I stitched the edges in neon thread so they lit up during dancing under black lights. Instead of going to the expense of renting furniture to furnish an industrial space, I covered four by four foot stage platforms with Tyvek and turned them into couches and beds. Tyvec also served as temporary slipcovers to help modernize a turn-of-the-century ball room in Manhattan. We loved the scale of the room, loved the chandeliers, loved the silk wall paper, but the stodgy Victorian furniture needed a lift. We erased the years by upholstering with Tyvek. Although not an easy task -- it involved lots of cutting and folding of the material -- it had the exact effect we hoped for.
Muslin, another material normally thrown away -- it is generally reserved for patterns in dressmaking and lining in furniture -- even allows you to "erase" an entire room, removing patterns or unwanted colors or materials. An all-natural material, it comes very wide, can easily drape and fold and is very inexpensive. My most extravagant use of muslin was to wrap a house for a beach wedding -- not something I would recommend for the do-it-yourself event.
But the house, needless to say, was transformed. It became almost literally a part of the landscape, a perfect backdrop for the sand and ocean. The muslin also formed a carpet on the beach for the chairs, while leaving an aisle of sand.
Insulating and packaging materials translate well for a modern palette, as they normally come in neutral tones. Clear bubble wrap, lining the walls, turned a very generic back room into this cool club, when the texture of the wrap was hit with simple LED lighting.
For flowers, I love baby's breath, often discarded as filler but when used in abundance becomes elegant, plush, and very romantic. For a large wedding we made 100 forty-inch spheres using only baby's breath, thick and lush, floating on extremely tall planters, tied with lily grass, sprinkled with gardenias. Lily grass, tied and knotted, became napkin rings. This can also be done with any wild grass and has a very modern effect.
Driving in the country last Fall, I was struck more by the beauty of the leaves discarded on the ground than the beauty of those on the trees. The fields were carpeted in color; I was inspired to scatter them thickly on the floor of a loft to fashion an indoor-outdoor carpet. They are also wonderful rearranged to create an intricate mandala, the centerpiece of your ceremony, just as shells and beach stones collected and carefully set can make a perfect, ephemeral carpet for your beach wedding.
So the next time you are about to throw away what is only poor filler, look again. There may be gold in that there dross.
Loading comments… 
