11 Food- and Travel-Theme Ideas From Diffa's Picnic By Design

Design professionals created picnic baskets around the theme using tabletop items, linens, and other rentals.
September 11, 2017
Whetting guests’ appetite for the good life, Diffa: Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS displayed several food and travel- or destination-focused picnic baskets at its sixth annual Picnic by Design event on September 6. Spread across the expansive rooftop space at Stage 48, a total of 22 elaborate concepts were on display for the evening’s nearly 250 attendees.
Guests bid to win each basket. The event was a success for Diffia, which exceeded its fund-raising goal by bringing in more than $50,000. (Last year’s event raised just over $47,000.) At the 2017 Picnic By Design, the caterer from last year, Canard Inc. shifted into the role of basket designer, keeping to the food theme. Drinks were provided by Tito's Handmade Vodka.
"With our largest and most successful picnic ever, we are overwhelmed by the outpouring of generosity from our designers, sponsors, and guests,” said Johanna Osburn, Diffa's executive director. "Representing a range of design disciplines, our supporters fuel our efforts to help fight H.I.V./AIDS here in New York and across the country."
Here are some of the baskets that used food, travel, or the idea of a staycation for New Yorkers as their theme.
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Inspired by the manuscripts of author Ernest Hemingway, Vanessa DeLeon Associates called its basket "Picnic Under the Sun in Kilimanjaro."
Photo: Erik Bardin

Calling on the romance and lavender of Provence, Stacy Garcia had guests imagining having a picnic on the French countryside.
Photo: Erik Bardin

A Morocco-inspired turntable, a vinyl copy of Charlie Parker's A Night in Tunisia, and fabrics by Robert Allen Design transported guests to Africa.
Photo: Erik Bardin

Catering firm Canard Inc. whetted guests' appetites with jars of food inside of its sophisticated "gray area" basket.
Photo: Erik Bardin

Architecture firm FxFowle worked to emphasize New York's contrasts in culture, generations, and more with the Wayfarer's Handbook, fortune cookies, a sustainable blanket, and other props.
Photo: Erik Bardin

Focusing on the grittiness of urban life, Jes Gordon/Proper Fun used lots of color, edgy props, and chaos.
Photo: Erik Bardin

Linen purveyor Matouk put a spotlight on a purple sample of new table coverings by using figs and lemon fig verbena candles for its basket.
Photo: Erik Bardin
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The trendy Danish concept of hygge, or happiness and well-being, inspired designers Michele Alfano and Tiago Fonseco to use elements of Copenhagen, such as a geometric, light-colored structure that could serve as a table.
Photo: Erik Bardin

Japan, and the nation's culture, came to mind from Scott Brogan Group's basket, which featured two custom-made sushi plates, tatami mat coasters, and chopsticks in a custom Douglas fir picnic box complete with chopstick holders.
Photo: Erik Bardin

This basket honoring the Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem, by Sheila Bridges, included linen that addresses African-American stereotypes, products and services from the area, and—for the highest bidder—two tickets to Amateur Night at the Apollo. Jouy
Photo: Erik Bardin

A vintage tweed suitcase was filled by Ted Moudis Associates with picnic accoutrements that could be used in the Tuscan countryside or even Central Park.
Photo: Erik Bardin
Rayna Katz