A Very Merry Band: When Fashion Meets the Feast
For a fantasy holiday feast, haute couture is paired with a one-of-a-kind menu by a daring young chef.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MAX VADUKUL, STYLED BY NICOLETTA SANTORO, NOV 28, 2017
Holiday traditions can feel familiar or startlingly exotic, depending on where you find yourself in the world, but there’s one element you’ll encounter as part of almost every celebration this season: the feast. Indeed, revelry and indulgence—in both eating and drinking—go hand in hand; they just might be the most ubiquitous aspects of the season.
With that in mind, Town & Country created a feast and a corresponding fashion fantasia the likes of which have never been seen before. The story was shot on location in Antwerp, Belgium, at the home of renowned interior designer Gert Voorjans, who has worked on private homes around the world, as well as on Dries Van Noten flagships in Paris and Tokyo.
A fantasy three-course meal was created by the chef Daniel de la Falaise (an Anglo-French nobleman who catered Kate Moss’s wedding, if you were curious about his credentials) to reflect the best the season has to offer, and to tie into the moment’s most astonishing clothes. The haute couture is offered alongside a menu that is also made to measure.
The first course, dubbed Garden to Table by de la Falaise, is a collection of vegetarian appetizers that complement the attire of the models posed around it. Each woman looks as though she has stepped out of one of the world’s most gorgeous gardens and brought with her ingredients for his meatless mélange.
Following that is the Hunters’ Banquet, a mess of wild fare, from partridge and grouse to foraged mushrooms, ready to be consumed by a phalanx of huntresses as well as Voorjans himself.
The finale is the sweetest course, a Faerie Tea Party comprising a flower-topped pavlova, rose-flavored macarons, and a trio of exotic sorbets. The models, joined here by Belgian singer Max Colombie, wear clothes that echo the colors of the confections in a room that could double as the world’s most luxurious sweet shop. It may not be the holiday table any of us is used to, but there’s no denying the charm of this one-of-a-kind winter wonderland.
Hair by Helene Bidard at Artlist Paris. Makeup by Sofie Van Bouwel at Dominique Models. Set decorations and table settings by Daniel de la Falaise and Gert Voorjans.
Produced by Ingrid Deuss at Ingriddeuss-Production
.com and IngriddeussGallery.com
This story appears in the December 2017/January 2018 issue of Town & Country.
