How to Throw an Easy Late-Summer Dinner Party, With Edible Flowers

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/t-magazine/dinner-party-edible-flowers-jeana-sohn.html

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Last summer, Jeana Sohn’s son, Moonie, turned 5, and she decided it was time to start a new project. Almost exactly one year later, this past weekend, she was surrounded by friends in Los Angeles to celebrate the debut of her namesake clothing line, a 13-piece ready-to-wear collection of easygoing dresses, crisp tops, cropped trousers and trench coats — all with impeccable, slightly tomboyish, tailoring and a quietly chic color palette. Until recently, Sohn, who left her native Seoul in 2001 to attend CalArts, has been known mostly as a painter and photographer. In 2010, she launched the fashion blog Closet Visit, and later, she began shooting look books for independent Los Angeles designers, including Jesse Kamm and Clare Vivier. Seeing the industry “behind the scenes led me to be interested in trying it for myself,” she says of designing clothes. Last Saturday, Sohn’s friends gathered in the Laurel Canyon backyard of the textile designer Heather Taylor for drinks, dinner and a chance to see the pieces up close.

A big party under the stars is not customary for Sohn, who is more comfortable entertaining one or two guests at a time at her home, where she serves expertly executed lattes and eight-minute boiled eggs — an occurrence so regular it’s commonly referred to as “Cafe Jeana." However, her friends were eager to fête her arrival as a designer. Encouraged by Taylor, Sohn eventually agreed to co-host a larger event, at Taylor’s home, and party planning followed. “I wanted my house for the setting in the hopes that it would make everyone feel cozy and welcome,” explains Taylor, Sohn’s co-host and close friend.

Just before sunset on the warm summer night, guests began to gather outside Taylor’s home and cool off in the shade of the garden’s giant sycamore trees. Against the woodsy backdrop, a single clothing rack showcased Sohn’s streamlined collection, but many of the pieces could also be seen in the crowd: Vivier arrived wearing a pink button-down of Sohn’s design, while the artist Mindy Shapero, the jewelry designer Grace Lee and the textile consultant Joanna Williams all had on the same billowy-sleeved shirt dress from the collection in eggplant, cream and caramel-hued velvet, respectively. Taylor wore the line’s V-neck Flower dress, which Sohn had made especially for her in cornflower blue. “Everyone wants to dress like Jeana,” says Taylor, “And now we all have a chance to.” Here, Sohn shares her fundamentals for entertaining with style and ease.

“It’s O.K. if the dishes and glasses are different,” says Sohn. “I don’t try to make things too perfect.” To ready her home for the evening, Taylor chose a wide range of tablecloths, napkins and pillows of her own design in a mix of blue stripes and honey-colored hues to play off Sohn’s mostly neutral palette.

“I was tempted to use bold prints to attract more attention to my collection, but I reminded myself that’s not what my line was about,” says Sohn of her minimalist tailored pieces. The menu, too, was simple — with a twist: The chef Lori Stern piled Astier de Villatte platters high with farmers’ market crudités, served with emerald-green herb dip; added touches like fresh lychees and edible dried hibiscus flowers (the national flower of South Korea) to the cheese board; and served trench-coat-shape cookies, hand-painted with cocoa and accented with a dark cacao collar.

“Flowers make any space look festive and happy immediately,” says Sohn. To complement the evening’s late summer theme, the floral designer Kristen Caissie, of the studio Moon Canyon, filled short vases with billowy white garden roses, sunset-hued Garden Show dahlias and wild grasses. Edible blooms also found their way into the food. Stern, who is best known for her pressed-flower shortbread cookies, incorporated chamomile buds into bountiful grazing boards of truffle cheese and fresh figs, sprinkled blue bachelor’s buttons onto stone fruit-topped bruschetta, and baked homegrown herbs and petals into crackers.

The drinks table was well stocked with a selection of chilled wines from Sohn and Taylor’s go-to wine shop, Helen’s Wines in West Hollywood: They chose Piedmontese La Mesma Gavi white wine, as well as Rosabella Rosato and Dolcetto d’Alba by the label GD Vajra, also from northwestern Italy. The signature cocktail was inspired by Sohn and Taylor’s shared love of Mexico: a zesty grapefruit mezcal margarita garnished with a nasturtium leaf, dried orange slice and begonia blossom.

“The most important thing is that the conversation shouldn’t be about one person,” says Sohn, who makes sure to carve out time to connect with all of her guests one on one as much as possible. Like Sohn and Taylor, many of the women at the party, like the interior designer Pamela Shamshiri, the luxury candle maker Wendy Polish and the jewelry designer Jessica Winzelberg are entrepreneurs in various creative fields, so the topics of the evening naturally included business, the elusiveness of a work-life balance — and dreams of vacation in San Pancho, Mexico, where Sohn owns a home.

“I feel more comfortable in pants than a dress,” says Sohn, who often opts for a cotton T-shirt and high-waisted pants during the day so she “doesn’t look sloppy” but is comfortable enough to do “mom-duty and work.” For this occasion, she choose a black top and pleated white pants, both samples from her spring 2019 collection, and black slides from The Row. “I like it when you are the primary focus, not the clothes.”