Haute Hostess Christine Chiu's Guide To Throwing The Most Fabulous Fête

Kathy’s party was really interesting and challenging. We’ve been friends for about seven or eight years. We’d known of each other for a long time but we actually became friends in Paris. We stayed at the same hotel (the Plaza Athénée) and we kept bumping into each other. She had lost her luggage or something and I sent her up clothes and bags. So I guess you could say over clothing and bags we became friends!

For her birthday there were a lot of restrictions. Even though she’s like, Mr. Chow’s best patron and customer, they had to stick by the rules. Outdoors, nothing private, and nothing on the tabletops. So I wasn’t allowed to have any flowers, any tablescape. No entertainment. 

I had to get creative quickly. Fortunately, there was this lady on Instagram who made a plate illustration of me - she said she was just bored during COVID and made these illustrated plates. So I reached out to her because I saw something there and I love personalization. I thought since they wouldn’t let me have my own plates or place settings, I could put these plates inside of Plexiglas and they would be OK, because people could just take them and go and no one’s touching or spreading germs. Then I was like, if I could do that, then I could put flowers inside an acrylic case as well for grab-and-go too. So we ended up doing that! For guests I did gigantic fortune cookies with customized fortunes made for them inside. I did sneak in rose gold chopsticks, but they were individual gifts people could just grab and go as well. 

I did what I could, but I think Kathy enjoyed it and she was able to spend time with her friends. Even though we were spread out at three different tables it still felt very cozy.