ACCORDING to Yvonne Rubin's entertaining bible, dramatic dinner parties have nothing to do with sparkling crystal, silver cutlery and outside catering.
All you need, she says, is some gold spray-paint, coloured paper, a handful of spring-onion flowers and heaps of imagination.
While it sounds like something out of a Jane Austen novel, Yvonne Rubin's School of Creative Ideas is neither for debutantes nor bored housewives. The 'school', a sun-filled house just off Repulse Bay, is actually a 'centre of inspiration', a place where people learn that throwing a party has less to do with how much you spend on your champagne glasses than how you create the atmosphere.
The quirkier and more original the surroundings, she says, the more enticing the event.
In her two years in Hong Kong, Rubin has come to realise a few home-truths about how people entertain here.
'People seem frightened to do anything different. There is huge importance put on designer labels generally, so everything lacks individuality.' That is something she hopes to change. For if this New Zealander had her way, a crystal centrepiece would be replaced with a watermelon, a toilet roll and a cheap Chinese doll, the fancy dinner service exchanged for plastic plates and the store-bought pate de foie gras with mashed boiled eggs.