Luxe Launch 2015: 1920’s Vintage Seaside Romance

Luxe Linen

9 years ago

Luxe_Linen_Launch_Sterling_Engagements_Shawna_Yamamoto_Bel_Air_Bay_Club10

There wasn’t a better team than Sterling Engagements and Shawna Yamamoto Event Design to come together to create “1920’s Vintage Seaside Romance.” They brought in a team vendors to not only create a tabletop design for our Luxe Launch LA held at Bel-Air Bay Club, but designed an entire room. Draping, lounging, and rentals were provided by Revelry Event Design, with other rentals provided by A Rental Connection. An ice luge created by Ice Bulb was the perfect addition to the seaside theme. Beautiful stationery from Prim and Pixie sat upon chinaware from Dish Wish. The team used our Monaco Ivory & Gold Linen with our VA VA Voom Biscuit Linen as an underlay, and our Va Va Voom Marine Napkins to complete their gorgeous design. Thank you Krista Mason Photography for the images!

We have an exclusive interview with the women of the design, conducted by Kristin Banta of Kristin Banta Events. See below for the full interview and photos.

Where did you first conceptualize this piece? Of course the linen is driving this, but did you have a design idea before you came into this?

No, not even a little bit. The linen and the Bel-Air Bay Club were actually the driving forces. The Bel-Air Bay Club was actually built from 1927-1928, and so we were inspired to take the linen, and to a certain extent, dial it back to that period of time and work by the seaside and work with a romantic element and tie it all together and work with the golden threads you see in the linen to help us do that.

How did you decide to go with this table design with so much sophistication and romance instead of Spanish lines to which this property was developed on? It’s unexpected and it goes together beautifully.

We wanted to make sure we designed something that still stands up to what today’s design standards are and be able to embrace the vintage elements, but at the same time add that current spin to it. I don’t think we ever do anything that is just all modern or all vintage. We usually do some type of this cohesive sense of both. I naturally don’t know if I’m capable to do one or the other because I automatically try to fuse things in because I want it to survive and be timeless and not be from one era. The thought behind it was to specifically have elements from both so that it would appear effortless, but you would see different accents of each time period.

Did you know going in what florals you wanted to work with?

We had multiple conversations about it and I wanted to really bring in the essence of romance. You don’t know what is going to exist and what it’s going to look like until you get to the market. We talked about a certain type of flow that we wanted, but ultimately the only thing that I asked for was the anemones. The tulips are huge to bring in the romance.

Did you have vision of the guest that would be sitting at this table?

Well the guest that would be at the very end of this table is Alfonso Bell, who actually created the Bel-Air Bay Club. If you continue down the table, you will look at different pioneers and socialites within both the Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica history from that time period like the Talmadge Sisters. All of the seashells have different names.

Well it’s beautiful and it sounds like you really did your research. In the design aspect, were you relying on imagery or just history? Did you pull images that you really responded to when you started designing this?

I actually didn’t look at a single image. I had images in my head, but it was more envisioning myself at a table, thinking of the time period and how I see the table, and how it would lay out. WIth florals, it was a combination of us talking it out. I was getting inspired by more of where we were, the location, who would be at the table, and letting that take over. There wasn’t a single image we looked at.