Being couture party stylists means combining confidence and dexterity with flair and creativity. On the one hand, you need to present your clients with a clear, innovative vision of how to design a special event that truly sparkles. Yet, you also need to be flexible enough to work within the ever-challenging confines of time, place, and personal taste. Just the other week, with Pesach fast approaching, we were given the opportunity to style a lavish Bar Mitzvah party. When it came to creating the favors, our clients had a brilliant idea to give out bedikat chametz kits. The challenge, of course, was taking the most traditional of artifacts and magically giving it a fresh, modern spin. If memory serves well, the typical bedikat chametz set distributed back in yeshiva day-school consisted of a shabbat candle, a ratty white feather, some old matches, and a photocopy of the blessings – its edges curled. That definitely wouldn’t work. As we began to plan the favors, we realized that the candle could use a eye-catching accent that fit with the black, white, and gold theme. The matches would need an especially bold and handsome design that brought the look together. We searched for and finally found decadent black feathers to which we added gold whispers. And to wrap it together we worked closely with a printer to produce a stunning cardstock bracha sheet. The results: a total makeover for the bedikat hametz kit. Erev Pesach never looked better! Photos by Dalia Finkelstein. Printing by Linear Paper,