Fashion Plates
By Paul Hagen
He's created events for the likes of Ralph Lauren, Versace and Yves Saint Laurent; Shai Tertner shares his tips for making your party as fashionable as a designer’s.
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I'M IN THE OFFICES OF SHIRAZ EVENTS,
where parties are conceived and executed for some of the world’s most
fabulous fashion labels. Shiraz owner Shai Tertner — looking fun and
funky in a vest, t-shirt and tie in shades of gray — is dishing with me
about what it’s like to work with clientele of such taste and style. At
one point, our conversation is interrupted when one of Tertner’s
associates pops in, sporting a shirt that seems too cute to be from
Adidas (but it is). He’s been putting the finishing touches on an
in-store event to celebrate a customizable new line of sneakers by the
sportswear giant. “You should stop by,“ Tertner says. |
WE'VE BEEN DISCUSSING event planning: a form of design that I think of as akin to those beautiful sand paintings that Tibetan Buddhist monks spend epic amounts of time painstakingly crafting and destroy shortly after completion. Creating a fabulous event takes similar amounts of talent, patience and the wherewithal to watch your work come from its fullest flower to its end, often in a mere matter of hours. No wonder it can be difficult to find the right planner.
“You don’t want to find out two weeks in advance [of the event] that someone overcommitted for you or someone didn’t manage your budget correctly or someone didn’t monitor the quality of things,” Tertner says. The right event planner for you is someone who is responsible, aesthetically compatible and can set aside his or her ego to adapt to your tastes, but also guide you to avoid tacky missteps and stay ahead of the fashion curve.
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Once you’ve found your planner, be honest with him or her. Tertner has dealt with companies who, trying to work within a budget, have said that they only planned to have 200 guests at an event. “The reality is, they’re going to allow 600 people to RSVP and 450 come in.” If you don’t share this info with your event planner, Tertner says, he won’t be able “to support the flow and to make sure that [the] catering aspect is well prepared.”
A good event planner will also, if you let him, help you avoid making choices that could be considered cliché. For example: ”I’m not a big fan of the whole ‘fall leaves.’ It’s so done,” Tertner says, throwing in a noise of disgust for good measure. Instead, he suggests channeling autumn cool by featuring more serious colors. “I like the dark browns,” he suggests. But he adds that, when using more somber tones as a base, it’s even more important to balance them with a vivid accent color. “Fuchsia right now for me is the fun accent,” he shares. “It’s a big color in fashion and design and beauty.”
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TERTNER ADMITS
that the glut of semi-employed actors and models in major cities means
that there’s no shortage of supremely attractive people to staff
events. The trick is to find the skilled ones. Make sure you talk to
your event planner about how he or she selects staff. Shiraz rigorously
evaluates candidates and keeps a long list of trained staff from which
the most appropriate servers — in terms of both skill and appearance —
may be culled to fit any client. |
Equal attention must be paid to what’s being served. “In every dinner party, you account for 10 percent to 20 percent vegetarian,” Tertner suggests, unless you’re dealing with a special request from a client like Stella McCartney. “She’s vegan,” Tertner explains. “She doesn’t ask us to do all vegan, but she definitely insists on vegetarian.” He also stresses the importance of making sure servers are prepared to explain the ingredients of dishes to those with sensitive allergies. This can be a memory-intensive task, if you’re serving — as Tertner recommends — between six and 12 hors d’oeuvres for a cocktail party (fewer if it directly precedes dinner).
When it comes to drinks, Tertner is a fan of the signature cocktail. “I think it sort of lets people examine and taste drinks that maybe [they] usually wouldn’t,” he says. However, he offers this caveat: “You have to be careful with specialty drinks that they’re not too labor intense,” he says, “otherwise the bartenders will be behind, and there will be lines behind the bar. So they need to be easy, fast or pre-made.”
If you’re lucky enough to be counting VIPs among your guests, you may need to provide a whole other level of service. It begins with something called a “rider,” which outlines their very important needs. “Even Lady Bunny has a rider. Like, for example, on her rider, it would say what kind of car needs to pick her up because it needs to [accommodate her famously enormous wigs],” he says. But VIPs or otherwise, it’s all about making a great first impression. “The first five minutes are so important,” Tertner says. He recommends trays of drinks, of course, but also likes guests to be greeted by a bit of entertainment to put people in the mood. He was particularly impressed by the welcome at the party where H&M launched with Matthew Williamson, where guests entered by walking “through a line of a hundred gorgeous models greeting you,” Tertner remembers. “I mean how fancy is that?”
"I'VE BEEN in this industry for many years, and I’ve seen all the mistakes!” Tertner says, laughing and noting that sometimes it’s the smallest details that give away the fact that an event has not been planned by a pro. “Like the juices, the bottles — what kind of size that they’re using. If they’re using the small ones, then it’s obvious that they know what they’re doing. If they are using the big ones, they’re all about discount and it’s obvious that it’s not professionally done.” How the ice is being handled can also be a dead giveaway. “Is it with a mug?” he laughs. “Is it sitting just in a pot or in the sink?”
The list goes on: “What kind of napkins are they using: Are those the square cocktail napkins or the ones you got with the print on them that you got at Gristedes? Is your coat rack outside still erect or is it down on the floor because it’s the one that you got at Bed Bath & Beyond?” Another rookie mistake is running out of essentials. When it comes to ice, says Tertner, “You get basically two pounds per person per hour for a cocktail party. And as far as glassware, you account for a glass-and-a-half per person per hour,” he suggests. “Unless if it’s Fire Island, then do two!”
If you’re choosing to entertain in your home, be proactive about protecting yourself. “Use what we call a white bar — no red wine, no coke, no cranberry juice, nothing that would stain,” Tertner suggests. “Make sure that you have enough tables around that people can put their glasses on, and if you have counters that you don’t want any marks on, cover them. Take everything out of the apartment — anything that is visible that can be destroyed that is valuable.” And most importantly, he adds, “Don’t over-invite.”
But Tertner’s number one rule is not to forget the fun. “There’s always a fun element,” he says, recalling parties he did in Miami that featured live animals and cages full of butterflies or the enchanted forest he recently created for Dr. Oz’s HealthCorps event, which he populated with whimsically costumed fairies. “If it’s not going to be fun, it won’t be a good memory where they say, ‘Oh yeah, of course: been [there] last year and I’m gonna be there next year.’”
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LATER THAT NIGHT I stop by the party at the Adidas store, and in it, I can see the influence of Tertner’s philosophy come to life. The room is filled with light, color and fun: Signature cocktails — a refreshing minty lemonade — are cruising around the floor in the hands of conspicuously handsome, meticulously mannered servers; fun effervesces from a corner of the room where a DJ is spinning and guests are taking turns designing shoes on computers and scribbling in eye-catching colors on a mural. Perhaps the most impressive part is the feeling that the whole thing sprang to life organically — as though the guests all happened to show up at this store just now and there happened to be fabulous cocktails on hand. But, if my conversation with Shai Tertner is any indication, that feeling is just one more aspect of the event that has been very carefully designed. |
(Clockwise from bottom) Two twists on floral accents from the American Ballet Theater Culinary Gala. Shai Tertner, in black and white. Shiraz stocks the bar at Loft 21.
And now more entertaining fashionably, from Shai Tertner, exclusively on Metrosource.com:
On being honest about your budget:
"People don't like to talk about money, but it's so important. I need to know within what frame I'm working. I can be super creative and create things that are really - not over the top - but are very invested, very expensive. … I think everyone has a vision; they might not know how to communicate. Even going back to numbers, they say, 'Oh, we don't have a budget.' You always have a number that you can feel comfortable with, always that you know you can go to your boss and say, 'I'm going to spend this on that.' There's always a number.
On whether gay clients tend to be more over the top:
"I would say not. Definitely not in New York. They're very careful with their image. I haven't had a gay client in a long time that we've done something that is like, very flamboyant. … If you asked me about five years ago, yes. … Now I think they'll be very careful. The ones that we do stuff like that - for example now we have a client in Dallas - we do a big party for him every year in the Hamptons and he's over the top. So for him we do that. But most of my clients here, … they're conservative and they're elegant.
On colors not to use:
"With lighting, definitely you wouldn't want to do green lighting at a party unless if you want people to look terrible. Seriously in some situations, you probably would. But you wouldn't do green lighting; blue lighting is not very complementary, as well. I've seen events where they used yellow and red; it's all about finding a balance. I mean, I don't think that yellow and red work - it depends on how it's done - I can't see it in an elegant situation."
On fun with earth tones:
"I like the dark browns, and I think that in order to work with dark browns, you need another color that's lighter and brighter and fun. Like I said, I bring fun wherever I go. I'm an Aquarian. And in my astrology I saw that the week I was born defines me as a fun-loving person. I'm a fun, life-loving person; so I make sure to manifest it."
On "green" catering:
As far as food, it's a matter of cost. It's just sourcing. But we do a lot of events. For example, there's this organization called Outstanding in the Field, and we helped them produce this dinner party together with Absolut. And we had to use all local ingredients from the local farms in the five boroughs [of New York City]. You know, you'd be surprised to hear, but there are farms in the five boroughs that are really producing great local produce; so it takes a little research but you make it happen. We constantly ask our purveyors to let us know what is out there, what can be used, because wherever I can of course I would like to produce, from a food standpoint, items that are local or organic.
On people he'd love to create events for in the future:
I would love to work with specific designers — product designers Karim Rashind. Marcell Wanders — do you know who he is? He's a Dutch product designer. He designed for Muji; he designed the Mondrian in South Beach. Just great! I would love to create with him because he's so outside of the box. Also, he does fun elegance. So that's something. Definitely. Who else would I want to create for — like work on a party for? I want clients that want have fun; so I want to do Jennifer Anniston's next wedding. She seems like a fun-loving girl. I know Jennifer Hudson is getting married; I would love to do her wedding. You know what? I would love to work with Cindy Crawford!
On benefiting from the mistakes of others:
I'm lucky that I have two people working in my industry who are very temperamental; so every time there's an event with them, and they go beserk, I get the phone call afterwards: "I don't want to work with them anymore. Can you help me?" It did really well for my business, especially in the Hamptons. Seriously, there's one specifically that has the worst temper, and every time I get a call and they say, "Oh my god, I can't work with this person anymore! Please help!" I'm like, "Sure!" But I like that person. Like him a lot.
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