Party planner or event designer? Frankly, neither title seems elegant enough for the late Jacques Frank, a Paris-based designer who conceived and decorated parties for the crème de la crème of café society, including Arturo and Patricia Lopez-Willshaw, Elsa Schiaparelli, Princess Chavchavadze, and Duc de Talleyrand. A decorator who worked for decades at the prominent French design firm, Maison Ramsay, Frank was a conjurer of atmosphere, creating inspired settings that transported guests to other times and places. A student of history, Frank seemed especially proficient in recreating eighteenth-century tableaux. Based on the photos below (obtained from Connaissance des Arts, September 1957), it appears that a Frank-designed party could be part spectacle, but spectacle executed in a graceful, refined manner.
I consulted my library to see if I could learn more about Frank, but sadly, the Baron de Redé makes no mention of Frank in his memoirs. The same goes for both Prince Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge, who doesn't reference Frank in his highly-collectible book, Legendary Parties, 1922-1972, and Thierry Coudert, who penned the recently-published book, Beautiful People of the Café Society. I did manage to scare up this tidbit online: it seems that Frank worked on these shores, too, designing Anne Ford's 1961 coming-out party at her parents' Grosse Pointe Farm, Michigan estate, according to a 1961 Time magazine article.
I have a feeling we might be more impressed by his work had these photos been published in color. After all, what's a party without color? But if you zoom-in on these images, you'll see that while Frank might have had grand visions for his clients' parties, the décor was never ostentatious.
