Celebrity guests including Academy Award-winning director Spike Lee, actress Marina De Tavira, screenwriter Peter Farrelly, and actors Keegan-Michael Key attended Raf’s gift lounge where they were gifted luxurious vacations, rejuvenating spa treatments and fine jewelry among other things. The pre-Oscars celebration took place on Friday, February 22nd at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills where attendees enjoyed live musical performances from Louis Price and Sonny Turner from legendary groups, The Temptations, and The Platters, as well as Grammy-winning gospel duo, Mary Mary.
Gift lounges are a way for brands to get their products noticed by gifting them to prominent people, having them take photographs with the product, and hoping they talk about it later. Jewelry designer and owner of his own gifting suite company, Rafi Anteby says about the concept of giving celebrities free products, “Their name and the likeness and their look is what they pay with. It’s a fair exchange between brands and artists, that’s how I see it. It’s almost like beautiful bartering. I’m the living proof. One hundred percent, without celebrities my brand would go nowhere.”
Other stars in attendance include Chadwick Boseman, Esai Morales, Billy Zane, Annie Starke, Edward James Olmos, Paul Oakenfold, Greta Van Fleet, Jared Haibon, among many others. For every celebrity who attended this pre-Oscars celebration, a generous donation was made to orphaned children in Myanmar.
