Roaring Twenties Birthday Party
/A dear friend’s 30th birthday was approaching. To celebrate reaching the end of her 20’s, she decided to have a Roaring Twenties party. She has mad mixology skills, so a major highlight of the evening would be the specially selected, Prohibition Era cocktails.
The decoration on the door to the party
To prepare for the evening, she had a friend and me over to test proportions for the cocktails and to teach us how to mix them properly (so she wouldn’t have to mix drinks all night at her own party). The cocktails she selected ranged from strong Old Fashioneds to sweeter Bees Knees, with Mary Pickfords thrown in (almost disdainfully) for the French guests who tend to opt for fruity drinks. My friend had even searched all of Paris to find plastic glasses in the correct shapes for each cocktail.
Inspired by the beautiful drink menus at Nightjar (a gem of a speakeasy in London), I made several menus for the soirée. I printed the list of drinks and a quote from the Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book on cream paper with red covers stamped with gold ink and tied together with gold string.
To complete her 20s-inspired ensemble, my friend wanted the perfect headband. She found elegant lace at La Droguerie in the Bon Marché and asked me to craft it. It was slightly precarious to sew elastic to the ends of the fragile lace, but I managed, and she looked beautiful!
