THE HOLLYWOOD CAKE

Ron Ben-Israel is an executive chef based in New York City. I admire the exquisite works of this master confectioner. Ron is known for his wedding and special occasion cakes and for his detail in sugar paste flowers. His artistry has become legendary and The New York Times has proclaimed him “the Manolo Blahnik of wedding cakes”.

The work of Ron Ben-Israel for the film Sex and the City 2 is delightfully decadent. Ron created a lavish wedding cake laden with glamorous crystals. The 5 tier design took a staff of 9 people and 50 hours to put together. The cake stood at 6 feet 4 inches tall featuring a custom design cake stand made out of acrylic. Approximately 4,100 Swarovski crystals were used, mainly using chandelier elements. The cake served 485 guests and had a retail cost of $32,000. Wow!

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DIGITAL CRYSTAL

The London Design museum has teamed with my favourite brand, Swarovski for a new exhibition. The show is a collaboration of light, crystals and digital technology featuring exciting new talents such as Ron Arad, Yves Behar, Maarten Baas and Paul Cocksedge. They explore the relationships between the digital age and intangible things and the idea of establishing new connections within this ever changing dynamic.

‘Swarovski at the Design Museum explores the meaning of memory in the digital age, with the demise of the analogue era our relationship and connection with personal memory, photographs, diaries, letters, time and ephemera is changing.’

-DEYAN SUDJIC, DIRECTOR OF THE DESIGN MUSEUM

The artists experiment with LEDs, laser lights, mirrors, light painting, intangible holograms and off course Swarovski crystals within the works. Yves Béhar’s Amplify Chandelier, (above) commissioned in 2010, takes a single crystal amplified within a paper lantern to create a digital pattern, a repeated form, each one different from the next.

The exhibition, "Digital Crystal" opens today, 5 September until 13 January.

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