Punk Rock British Wonderland Comes to Life in Dallas, Brings Wicked Fun

When weather called for a strong, quintessentially Texas storm the night of the Eye Ball, threats of lightning and thunder required quick decision making on behalf of the event’s organizer extraordinaires.

Headington Companies’ Jeny Bania along with Swoon’s Sam Sano and Joslyn Taylor made a quick pivot: Rather than brave the imminent downpour, they moved the event from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon — making it a mid-morning brunch of magnificent scale.

Emails about the reschedule were deployed and at promptly 10 am the next morning, guests turned out en masse for a tipsy tea party.

Down Alice’s rabbit hole we went, meandering through a hedge maze and grabbing a cup of tea from servers disguised in a surrealist topiary.

(FYI: Those darling tea cups were not so tame — as they were inscribed inside with wicked witticisms by Dallas-based company, Vulgar Tea Cups. Mine appropriately read, “Delicate fucking flower,” while my date’s was a bit more optimistic with, “You Lovely Piece of Art.”)

The Eye Ball’s theme is always the highlight of the party and despite a change in schedule, the details didn’t miss a beat. The idea of getting lost in a punk-rock British wonderland was perfectly in tact — even in daytime.

We found several partygoers huddled in the maze’s tiny hidden room, where neon lights, shag carpet, and scratch-and-sniff wallpaper made for an experience that could only have been heightened by an acid trip.

A crimson phone booth, straight out of a London streetscape, boasted a mysterious telephone: When the light flashed, we were dared to pick up the phone and see what kind of stranger was on the other line. (For the record, we’re still trying to make sense of that mysterious chat.)

Those who are veterans of the Eye Ball also know not to leave the scene without first taking a peek into the bathrooms — or, in this case, more properly referred to as the loo. This year, they were covered top to bottom in a graphic floral vinyl, making this the most photogenic spot of the party.

Well, not quite.

A queue formed all afternoon for a trip inside Motus Red’s photo booth. (And it really was a trip.)

The tilted set was propped with oversized tea cups and other Alice in Wonderland-style objects — and when photographed gave the effect that those on one size of the room had been shrunk, while those on the other side were enlarged.

I found myself having eaten the mushroom that makes you itty-bitty and sipping out of an enormous teacup. Have I made it back to my normal height, yet? Almost.

PC Seen: Performer Sarah Jaffe, whose moody vibe was perfectly in line with the afternoon; plus Jan Strimple, Kelle and Joe Jackson, Bridget Hall, Michael Tregoning, John Sughrue, Shelby Wagner and Niven Morgan, Sara and Michael Modovan, Peter Doroshenko, and the most famous guest — err, puppy — in attendance, Bertie The Pomeranian (he boasts nearly 400,000 Instagram followers).