Q&A; : Parties the Tiffany Way

John Loring, senior vice president and design director of Tiffany & Co., has written his fifth book, “Tiffany Parties” (Doubleday, $60), chronicling some of the most lavish events of the decade, from the Reagans’ last White House state dinner--decorated with peach-colored rose trees--to Patricia Kluge’s birthday party at the Waldorf-Astoria Grand Ballroom in New York, awash with 1 million flowers. Like the stores he represents, Loring has become synonymous with taste and style. He recently talked about his new book.

Question: Who puts on the best parties? Charities? Corporations? Tycoons?

Answer: It’s charities in general. There are more important minds at work. A big charity fund-raising ball will have an honorary chairman--usually a public figure--who probably is not going to do any real work on the party but will put her stamp on it. There will usually be two co-chairmen who actually do the most work. Then there is a committee of at least a dozen social ladies who will work, too. That’s 14 major minds and personalities focused on this one party. A private party has one mind focused on it. It could turn out very well, but the chances are that 99% of the time it won’t turn out as well as the party done by the chair ladies and their committee.

Q: Has entertaining on a grand scale become grander?

A: Yes, entertaining has become better designed and more exciting. People have always entertained on a grand scale, but it was uniform and stereotyped until the ‘80s. In this decade, party designers, florists and caterers brought an entirely new look to entertaining that wasn’t there.

Q: What exactly have these professional party people brought to the table?

A: They brought a sense of fantasy that takes a party into an area where it belongs, a world where all realities of daily life are suspended. Now you find yourself in a magic palace, which is invigorating and restful and gives people an opportunity to behave in a different way than they would with the cares and aggravations of daily life surrounding them. In the old days, big parties tended to be costumed. Well, the costume party is obviously a thing of the past. Now it’s the rooms themselves that are costumed.

Q: It used to be that people made a party great--is it the environment what matters now?

A: People definitely make a party great, but people behave in a more interesting way if they’re surrounded by a fanciful environment.

Q: When you enter a party, what do you notice first?

A: I notice the people first and the decoration almost at the same time. Less tangible is the feel of the place, if there is a sense of event in the air. If a party is successful, everyone is electrically charged. If you walk into a party and feel people have skimped either in the guest list, the decoration, or the guests themselves have skimped on their clothing and jewels, you’re not going to have a very exciting time. Those are not the successful parties that make all the money for charities and cultural institutions.

Q: Does that mean that simple parties are doomed these days?

A: We’re not talking about simple parties. Having three friends in for dinner is wonderful in its own way. Our subject is grand parties. And you absolutely simply cannot have a simple charity ball. You can choose to have a simple theme. In New York, we might have a Western theme for a party, and everyone whoops with laughter as the great social ladies walk in with Paul Bunyan lumberjack shirts and blue jeans and cowboy boots.

Q: Are some parties distinctly Los Angeles or New York or Dallas?

A: I think we’re pretty homogenized nationally on these things. Remember, all of the flowers from one part of the world are transported to the other in a matter of hours by plane, and everybody with modern communication is aware five minutes later of what everyone else did.

Q: Since your interest is obviously china, silver, crystal--Tiffany products--how do party

givers deal with those items in a hotel or public place?

A: You don’t expect a dinner of 800 served on fine porcelain. You expect things that will survive an industrial dishwasher. No one I know has 800 of anything.

Q: Did the Reagan years truly influence social style?

A: I certainly think so. The Reagan White House, with all the beautiful dinner parties, was a kind of green light for people to think about the big party as an American phenomenon and something that could be used to raise money for big institutions, just as it was used to bring glamour and dignity to the Washington government.

Q: What about the Bush style?

A: The Bush style is a more relaxed, all-American, homey style than the Reagans’.

Q: How did your editor Jacqueline Onassis’ touch show up in the book?

A: She was a great help to me in identifying which public buildings were the most important ones to represent, and also her rightful, constant insistence that the book’s theme be on the use of public spaces for fund-raising events. She, as I, leaned toward parties where there was some real magic in the event, and it wasn’t simply a massing of chairs and tables. We both leaned away from parties where there was a major flaw that called you back to reality. This was a credit to all of the women who produced these parties.

Q: What would your ideal party be like?

A: My own preference is for parties given in architecturally extraordinary environments. Almost every city has a library or museum or even the stage of a theater that is an exceptional piece of architecture. I prefer that to a tent pitched in a public park. It lacks the drama. To give a party in a hotel ballroom misses a lot of the flavor of the great American party. The party we did for the publication of the book took place in the Metropolitan Club, a great Stanford White room. It’s a great masterpiece of American architecture, and it’s a space in constant use for raising funds. I also liked the party we photographed in Union Station in Washington, D.C. Who would have thought of giving a party in a train station? I liked the architectural underpinning to the whole event. It’s a solid structure to build a party on. It’s exciting to go into what I call palaces of the people, and it’s exciting to go to a palace for a party, even if that palace is a train station.