Just in time for the party season, John Loring, the design director for Tiffany & Co., visited the company`s Chicago store, 715 N. Michigan Ave., for a stylish standup breakfast to introduce and autograph his new book, ”Tiffany Parties” (Doubleday, $60.)
Produced in collaboration with such social all-stars as editor Jacqueline Onassis and New York Post society columnist Aileen ”Suzy” Mehle, who wrote the preface, the 208-page coffee-table-size book chronicles 45 of the lavish gatherings that marked the 1980s. It was a decade, Loring suggests, when lavish parties became an American staple and marked ”the coming of age” of party designers, those people who orchestrate gatherings down to the last detail.
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If President Reagan and wife Nancy set the pace for party-giving in the 1980s, Loring, for one, anticipates and hopes the big parties will continue into the 1990s.
The secret of a successful party, the design director says, is not money. The key is guests who are going to like and stimulate each other and who will actively participate in amusing others.
”A great guest list is only good if it is teamed with a good seating list,” he adds. ”People should be seated with one person they know and one they don`t know so there is an element of discovery, of surprise, of learning something new.”