We live for great parties and collaborations! Earlier this summer we conceived and created an al fresco dinner party with a surrealist twist for Inspired Living Omaha. The setting that was fun, inviting, and visually appealing to the senses.
Although summer is coming to an end, fret not! There is still time to host an outdoor soirée and we’ve curated our tips, tricks, and music for your summer swan song fête!
Inspired by Marie-Hélène de Rothschild’s 1972 Surrealist Ball at Château de Ferrières near Paris, we borrowed from the work of Magritte, Man Ray, Fornasetti and Dali.
We’re especially proud of our place card homage to Magritte’s “Son of Man” using hand rendered bowler hats we fashioned from card stock. These hovered over green apples supported by gold hat pins.
A mash-up of Dali mirror-reversed text using script font influenced by Man Ray’s “Les Grands Transparents” on a Magritte cloud print—all inspired by Rothschild’s Surrealist Ball invitation—became our menu cards.
Followers of our blog know that we love Sol Le Witt! So we mitered a B&W striped fabric into concentric squares giving the tabletop a graphic punch. The ready-made seat cushions, $40 each, from cafepress.com, mirror our home-made table topper with a surrealistic, pinwheel twist.
Fornasetti-eque keyhole motif pillows talk back to both the “Julia” dinnerware and the Seletti flatware that are designed around 19th century keys. We further emphasized this “key” imagery with red ribbon that gives the impression of an exaggerated key fob and also repeats the red from the keyhole pillow covers.
A vintage “Perpetual Face” vase centers the table, pulling from all the various iterations of both Fornasetti and Magritte’s iconic images. We used gold ribbon wire as a surrealist take on curly willow in our floral arrangement. Pulled together, the table becomes a dizzy array of Surrealist iconography. Let’s party!
And because we all live in a very busy world, we’ve created menu cards and invite templates for you to download, edit, and remix for your own Surrealist themed-party! Plan your event and host your party to our curated music lists here, here, and for AppleMusic lovers, here!
You can read the full story of our event in Inspired Living Omaha!
How do you host an outdoor dinner? Please share your tips and tricks for a great al fresco party in the comments section below!
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