This week’s holiday highlight
was Curated Curios & Cocktails, a lush, edited shop-a-thon at The Belle
Meade, flavored with a dash of the Casbah. PaperCity magazine coaxed our editors’ top home design and gift
stops to set up shop for one night — talk abut a bazaar — while event
designer-caterer Elizabeth Swift
improvised an exotic Moroccan vibe.
Balancing cranberry Grey
Goose martinis in hand, and innovatively wrapped packages in another (Brown for
example, provided guests with burlap bags), souk seekers strolled through the
Belle Meade’s model units decked to shop: A Bientot, Casa de Novia, Elaine
Turner, Found, Indulge, Kuhl-Linscomb, Mecox, Moo Boo’s at Tootsies, Muse,
Nobility Studio, Objects ... Lost and Found, Peel Gallery, p & e for table,
River Oaks Bookstore, Sloan/Hall, Tootsies and Vieux Interiors were among the
swell retailers. Whew!
And among
the 300 + shoppers: The Belle Meade’s developer Jeff Gray with wife Susan and
daughters
Lauren and Emily; architects Bill Stern and Scott
Ziegler, dropping by to congratulate Gray on his new residential building;
designer Lisa Epley; Brad Hensler; Neal
Hamil loaded with goodies from Objects, Mecox and Found; Adam Adams, snapping
up a sculpture of a stallion from Mecox for his mid-century ranch; Molly
Hubbard (giving us the latest about public art at Rice) with mother-in-law Patty
Hubbard; Frank Herzog, aka Mr. Pop because of his fabulous 1960s-era
art collection; Houston Design Center’s Denzil Hollingsworth; Elegant
Additions’ Julie Koch with husband Richard and Heather
Domingue; Alexandra Weems; Carol Piper; Ryan Reitmeyer; Barbara
Vilutis; Greg Fourticq Jr.; Found boutique’s Ruth and Neal
Davis and Aaron Rambo; Luvi Wheelock; Hines
executives Joshua Espinedo and Claire Cormier Thielke; Bruce
Wolfe of Ligne Roset; Helen Perry, who raved about our new mayor
(she’s serving as Annise Parker’s image consultant) with pal Dallas Hill; art dealer
Laura Rathe; Ann Wilde, leaving with a peacock plus
something special for her daughter (which we’re not allowed to divulge);
Tootsies main man Mickey Rosmarin; Phyllis Hand chatting
with Mary Beth Aspromonte (whom we both found later at
Armandos); and Recipe for Success founder Gracie Cavnar, in a
crafty contemporary felt necklace, who summarized the evening perfectly, “Cute
stuff. All the best people.”