By Chester Francis-Jackson, Gleaner WriterDOVECAKES, aam-a-telling-y'all, the 2004 party season is off and to a simply marvellously wonderful start! Sweet-pumpkin-pies, we are talking fabulous here and then some, as indeed, the chic, the well-to-do, and of course the truly fabulous - are not merely content to survive, they have upped the ante, and sweethearts how!
My dears, Kingston's all-powerful social elite was in the throes of celebrating the good life all weekend, and me daahlings, they did in the unapologetic and flawless style of the civilised! And it made for a darling of a weekend!
In a nutshell - it was one absolute and screamingly fabulous orgy of parties! And Luvs, we are talking partying from the salubrious climes of a wintry Stony Hill, across to the preferred upscale residential community of Norbrook and then over to the rolling Caymanas Estates, for a cap on a weekend that buzzed with the celebrations of the fabulous, the toasts of the grand and buttressed by the polite society!
Dears there were birthday parties, wedding anniversaries, and quite a number of plain old 'feel-good' parties, but more anon!
And so, after a two-month extension to their tenure, HE Ambassador Fernando Pardo and his absolutely fabulous wife Alix Pardo leave Kingston on February 21, as their tour of duty comes to an end!
Sadly, their departure will leave a void within the ranks of the diplomatic crowd and snob-society as indeed, the Pardos were not only known for their sense of style and grace, they were celebrated for their elan and elegance.
VALENTINE'S DAY CELEBRATIONS
Dears, today, the charming Maureen Lee, of Yallahs, St. Thomas, celebrates her birthday. The party plans however, are to be stayed until the weekend when it will all be about Valentine's Day celebrations!
Belated birthday wishes also to the lovely Donna Feltis-Coore, who celebrated her special day last Friday.
And speaking of Valentine's Day - the word is, and this is according to Fashionista Jerrine Jones - the colours this season is definitely Pink and White, so get with it!
Over in Ocho Rios, however, Eva Myers, is promising a Lovers Feast, and then some, come this Valentine's Saturday at her Evita's Italian eatery. On Sunday, however, it is all about Harmony Hall, for a festival of art by a number of leading Jamaican artists as this celebrated Art Gallery and Curio establishment continues its 2004 gallery season.
On Sunday night, however, it was the charmingly lovely and very beautiful Aloima Suarez, who celebrated her birthday. And celebrate she did with a wonderfully intimate little party at the oh so swanky home of her beau, security conglomateur Kenny Benjamin, that saw a number of guests, headlined by her parents.
With the lights of Kingston at their feet and a ferocious wind bellowing throughout the evening and way into the night, guests were treated to an evening of fabulous repartee, a wonderful fare of Chinese and Cuban dishes, and hot salsa like rhythms that kept most not only humming but buzzing throughout the celebrations.
Dessert was a marvellous birthday cake, and there was no ceremony here just an interlude to facilitate the cutting of the birthday cake by the birthday belle and her beau and a chorus of birthday songs in Spanish and English, as oodles and oodles of party elixir and other libations, not only flowed, but complemented the mood of celebration, making the night wear flawlessly well, the ladies contoured like nobody's business and fabulously so!
Among those out toasting the birthday girl included: Jorge and Raina Perez; Joe and Maria Pinchin; Clive and Ophelia Morin; Charles and Brunetta Matthews, Ian and Debbie Garbutt; Al Niazi and Charmaine Johnson-Niazi; Jim Gill and his betrothed Marina Sakhno (they will tie the knot in early April); Rajiv Bakshi (just back from India after attending rites to lay his father to rest) and Dorothea Gordon-Smith; Claude Clements; Freddy Dumetz and Sutherland; Robert Haughton and steady Heather Blanco; Craig and Anne Marie Phang-Sang, she, as stunning as ever! the lovely Martha Corbett-Baugh; Alejandro and Sara Gutierrez; Eugenio and Rosa Pellce; and Cuban musical folklorist Melizet Rodriquez - who led the night in a fabulous bilingual sing-along, as she made her guitar talked nothing but marvellous music!
On Friday night last, among the many parties buzzing in upper St Andrew, was one hosted by noted and celebrated award-winning photographer, Brian Rosen, at his St. Andrew residence, over there in Norbrook.
Now Dovecakes, as parties go, not only was this a power-gaggle, it was one charming heck of a good thing, and then some!
Dears, now for years, Brian Rosen has not only been Jamaica's premier photographer and chronicler of the beauty of Caribbean women and women of the world community through his lens, he has also recorded his works for wider public consumption through a series of must have coffee table tomes that have proved fabulous best sellers!
Long before the Coffee-table tomes however, there were those absolutely sensational Brian Rosen posters that became instant collector's items, as not only were they flawlessly racy, they captured the often much talked about and debated natural sensuality of the Jamaican female, in a mode that not only preserved the total beauty of the subjects featured, it was a hitherfore ignored celebration of this most precious and revered art-form.
ROSEN'S GENIUS
And so, today, the genre not only made popular by Rosen's genius, has evolved into a major industry with crude imitations of the art-form he popularised emerging every-which-where!
If, as they say, imitation is the best form of flattery, then indeed, Rosen has a lot to be proud of, like the pioneer he is. However, he is not standing around and patting himself on the shoulder, as he basks in achievements of the past.
Today, Rosen has taken his stock-in-trade photographic artistry to yet another level as with the use of technology the photographic artist has now married traditional photography to the traditional concept of art, whereby through a new process, images recorded by the lens are now transformed unto the canvas thereby creating the imagery of a masterpiece done on canvas and in the age-old style of a master painter applying his brush. And with archival treatment, the process can endure for centuries!
Doves, it is the only and hottest wave for the well-heeled when it comes to portraiture!
Anyway, fresh from his triumph in his award-winning JMMB 2004 photographic Calendar, Rosen has now teamed with the charming Frances Bello, in a new venture named "Impress Print Brokers" - a new printing concern created with an understanding with Caricom Printers, to secure the best deals and services for Jamaican companies.
PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR
It was to celebrate the success of his JMMB Calendar, that saw him being adjudged the Photographer of the Year, as well as to toast the new venture and partnership, that he invited a number of business leaders, friends, associates and family members to his Norbrook residence, last Friday, to what was a fabulous little cocktail reception.
With drinks flowing; enough finger food to supply a rural village, the evening proved faultless! And then there was the society! August, and then some, with among those out, included: Butch Stewart; Kenny Benjamin; Robert MacMillan; Arthur Lok-Jak; Richard Fontaine; Stephen Facey; the supremely elegant Carol MacMillan; Dr. George Phillip; Andre and Frances Bello; John Rosen; Matthew and Vynette Zaidie; Gordon Arnold; Russell Hadeed; Eddie (who spun some def and really hip tunes) and Candy DePass; David Read; Jennifer Armond; Whilie Lopez; Andrew Cherry and his dee-vine Trinidadian fiancee Lydia Braithwaite; Owen Harry and companion Marie Chin-Yee; John Babcook, in from his Chippewa Village Boutique Hotel in Negril; R. Christene King; Dr. Napoleon Ochoa; the beautiful Michelle Moodie; Norbert Prey of Negril and the lovely Jennifer Govia; Craig and Jodi Rosen; the lovely Anna Earysheva; Carlos Aqui; Kathryn Davies; Darcy Crooks; Pauline Nelson; twin Godlings Richard and Robert Bradford; the hot Laura Zurbastr; and the beautiful Vliana Afanasenko; plus a number of others.
