NICK SPANSWICK
EVENTS AND DESIGN
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A 'Surrealist' 18th birthday party
We were asked to design an 18th birthday party for a young art lover with a passion for Salvador Dali and the Surrealists.
We had a lot of fun designing different fantasy areas including an entrance and cocktail area, a buffet/dining area and an after-party area, each with their own fantastic surreal decor.
Seen here is the main garden area where we would build the party space.
Our visual for the main party space. We wanted each area to showcase surreal items inspired by famous works of art. For this area, we used the checkered floors of Dali, the floating balloon trees of Myeongbeom Kim and the cloud paintings and body parts sculptures of Magritte. For the pool, we were inspired by the paintings of Bruno Pontiroli and for the cocktail area we were inspired by Dali's long-legged elephants.
The entrance was an enormous keyhole seemingly cut out of the hedging.
Guests passed through the keyhole entrance into a cocktail area dominated by 6m-high recreations of Dali's iconic long-legged elephants. Waiters were dressed in Magritte's bowler hats, with green apples instead of flowers as buttonieres.
A view of the cocktail area as the guests assembled, each wearing some element of surreal fancy-dress.
A view across the party space, showing the 'Surrealist' clouds, the checkered dance floor, soaring balloon trees and birdcages filled with roses.
Our bar on the dance floor. Just visible here are the over-sized hands holding up the dramatic red curtain backdrop. T
he huge curtains that we draped around the space were actually fixed to wooden frames so they didn't move in the breeze, adding a static and subtly surreal feel to the ambiance.