A dear friend’s first book, “Not Your China Doll” a biography on the first Asian American movie star Anna May Wong, was just published and I helped create a photobooth for the release party for the occasion.

To help celebrate the launch of the biography Katie wrote on Anna May Wong, I offered my set decorating skills to create a photo booth for attendees of the book’s launch party.

We searched for an appropriately glamorous photo of Anna May Wong (and there are many) that would be simple to recreate, and this one was good because it really just had three elements:

• fabulous chair

• rug

• fabric backdrop with fullness and folds

Plus Anna May Wong is posed in an accessible way for people to copy with just one simple accessory.

Fortunately Katie had already chosen a fabulous location, The Red Pavillion in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn that already had a fabric background with good lighting we could build on.

So I got to work scouring local prop houses for a chair matching the shape and feeling of the one in the photo and thought even though the rug or carpet in the original photo looks pretty plain, finding a Deco Chinese rug would be a nice match thematically.

Came up with three options based on what was a closest match, what was most affordable, and which was the most glamorous interpretation of the idea.

As you can see, Katie chose the Most Fab Glamour option. I mean you only have your first book’s launch party once!

Then we considered other options on this theme and how it would work with the color and lighting in the spot:

I think it turned out great, and most importantly attendees at the party had a grand time taking photos in the photobooth!

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