If alcohol, pastries, models and the louche appointments of the Stan Mansion are your bag, you’ll be thrilled.
Let Them Eat Cake is a Marie Antionette-themed photo shoot/pastry event that promises a French-style Rococo set design by Shari Cornes of The Boutique Photo Loft (boutiquephotoloft.com). Cornes will be hauling in furniture and draperies to transform the place into quarters worthy of “Madame Défecit.” So far as concept events go, it’s a brilliant blend of the famous teen queen’s decadent and infamous taste for sweets with showy fashion, drinks and… well, more sweets.
Organized by Janay Graves for her modeling and event agency JG Events, the period-dressed ladies will lounge on-set for registered camera-clubbers throughout the first part of the day. They’ll be decked out in elaborate gowns and sculpted wigs with “preposterous additions such as fans, long feathers, floral bouquets and possibly a sailboat.” Local designers have been posting images to the Let Them Eat Cake Facebook page, showcasing a grommet and beadwork corset from stylist q.phia and gown design drawings by Janette Allier. Post-show, Graves will select images from the shoot that will be published in an indie fashion magazine Amour. Once the photo shoot is over, the dinner and themed after-party will offer up twelve to fifteen tables stocked with samples from local “pastry chefs, bakers and chocolatiers,” as well as alcohol, including sponsored wine, liquors, Champagne and sparkling prosecco.
A $42 general-admission ticket gets you entry, access to those yummy dessert tables, two hours of sponsored bar and, if you’ve got little ones, you can also savage their dental health for a mere additional $21.50 each. Everything takes place in Logan Square’s 1921 Straugh-designed Stan Mansion, a former Masonic temple built for the Knights Templar (for reals), a marvel for its restored, expansive ballroom and dance floor. Given all this, there’s probably no potential first-date night more epically satisfyingly simply for the sheer measure of its gluttonous decadence, but to top it all off, proceeds from the event benefit the Horizon Center for Children and Adults with Developmental Disabilities and Autism (newhorizoncenter.org). (Michael Workman)
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