Two male models clad in lame briefs lolled amid lush pillows placed around a table in a green Plexiglas enclosure meant to resemble an 8-foot-tall Champagne Taittinger bottle. This was just one of the more outlandish table arrangements at Elle Decor magazine’s “Dining by Design” gala at the Merchandise Mart, a fundraiser for AIDS-related charities. The 380 partygoers, a who’s who of local designers and artists mingling with arts patron, were treated to the spectacle of a long row of extravagant wine coolers designed by celebrities such as Bette Midler and John Waters, all silent-auction prizes along with selected items from the 27 idiosyncratic-looking tables, on which an elegant feast was served. Some guests were seated at a table that evoked the experience of a TV dinner (each facing a tiny TV), others at one whose glass top allowed a view of the aquarium underneath. Painter Michael Bonfiglio, one of the dozen or so Chicagoans commissioned by sponsors to decorate their tables, replicated the crazy-quilt pattern of one of his canvases (on display) in the tablecloth, place mats and napkins as well as his own suit. His was a colorful presence in a room dominated by the black-on-black look. Margaret Russell, editor-in-chief of Elle Decor, a publication that celebrates upscale living, imported her two monochromatic retro-’50s tables–one in blue, the other in pink–from New York. “This is the fifth year we’ve been doing this, all for an urgent cause,” she said of the affair, which raised about $90,000. “But it’s our first time in Chicago. The Midwest doesn’t lack in imagination and enthusiasm, I must say.”
