Dinner By Design

This week at DIFFA's Dinner By Design two dozen or so design firms and schools presented dining environments in booths at Skylight Studios and raised money for HIV/Aids care and research. Most of the tableaux demonstrated that their designer's chief ability to shop, and shop a lot, for opulent, intricate place settings. But a couple stood out in their concept and production. The Rockwell Group created this dining table that was all hand knit, a welcome contrast to the rococo Long Island settings elsewhere. A lovely young woman named Mary was still at the table knitting.

Mary had knit the hanging lights "fixtures", each one of which had taken 5 hours to create.

The whole thing was very trippy and cool, particularly in contrast to all the fabulosity at the party (I kept thinking, so that's who shops at Barneys and Jeffrey and Prada-designers!)

Another space by The Rockwell Group was made for Stolichnaya elit, their super high-end brand and one of the event's sponsors. Those are the bottles on the table, and those are faux furs (I'm assuming) on the...banquette? bench? Anyhow, quite luxe.

A group of students from Pratt made this one from reconstituted wood and paper.

On an even less glitzy (but not un-showy) note, David Cicerone of Dalzell Productions created this piece entitled "Resist". From the accompanying placard: "Has altruism lost its place at the dinner table?...22 million people have dies of HIV/AIDS...Globally 42 million are living with HIV/AIDS...blindfolded and captive,  the victim dares you to resist his anguish"