For Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare’s 25th anniversary, the experiential agency Another A Story turned Studio 525 in Chelsea into a one-night tour through the brand: a pharmacy, a doctor’s exam room, a museum of the brand’s history and a lounge lit by its LED face masks. The Factory NYC fabricated and installed the sets, working from the agency’s creative deck and a reduced-scope design that came together in the two weeks before the party.
About the event
The party took place on May 8, 2025, from 4:30 to 9 PM. Another A Story laid the venue out as a series of rooms, each telling part of the brand’s story under the campaign line “Bring the Clinic Home.” Our scope covered the pharmacy booth, the orange exam room, a display pedestal for the museum set, the LED mask wall in the lounge, and a long list of furniture and props that needed to match the brand’s orange.
The pharmacy booth
The pharmacy was the largest build. Two shelving towers, each 9′10″ tall and 65″ wide, flank a back wall carrying a round “Doctor Formulated, Clinical Proof” seal. The client’s first concept called for extruded aluminum shelving. We reworked it in painted MDF, with ¾″ shelves, HVLP-sprayed white verticals and ½″ frosted acrylic backs, then lit every shelf with diffused 3000K LED strips so the products glow from behind. Every shelf is 8″ tall inside except one, which is 10″ so the brand’s LED masks fit standing up.
In front, a 14-foot curved counter (167″ wide, 40″ tall) doubles as a sampling bar, with an open back and a shelf for staff to stage giveaways. The curves are MDF and bendable “wiggle” board, laminated and finished white, with seams kept to a minimum. Above it, a cantilevered curved header carries “Bring the Clinic Home” in ⅛″ Sintra dimensional letters painted orange, with a slightly different sheen from the header so the lettering reads under the lights. Product names on the shelves are die-cut vinyl from the client’s art files.
The orange exam room
The exam room set is a 14′6″ double-sided wall, 8′9″ tall, painted floor to ceiling in Pantone 158 C. Upper and lower cabinets (scenic only, the doors don’t open) hold a faux sink and faucet, with dimmable 3000K under-cabinet lighting. The brand’s D+ mark is a push-through sign: CNC-routed ¾″ milk acrylic set into the wall and lit from a light box behind it.
The set was also a photo spot, so the doctor’s chair and stool had to be real. We sourced a treatment chair, built a painted box around its base to match the renders, sprayed the frame and recovered the cushions in fabric matched to the same orange. The sink, faucet and every small accessory went through the spray booth too.
Museum, lounge and lobby
The back of the exam room wall became part of the museum set. We finished that face smooth for a vinyl skin installed by others and built plywood blocking into the wall so the agency could hang audio stations and framed pieces. A single 8′ × 2′ display pedestal, 36″ tall and painted orange, held artifacts from the brand’s history.
In the lounge, we hung the client’s LED face masks in a laser-marked grid with a battery-powered RGB puck light behind each one, and mounted the client’s “Get Lit” neon sign on the same wall. For the lobby and the other rooms, the agency sent furniture and props, from coffee tables and a TV console down to soap dispensers, pen holders and a desk clock. We assembled them and spray-painted every piece in Pantone 158 C.
Two weeks, one day on site
The project was handed to our team on April 24, 2025, two weeks before the event. Drafting, fabrication, sourcing and painting ran in parallel in the shop. Load-in started the afternoon of May 7. Our crew returned at 8 AM on May 8 and had to be finished by 4 PM, half an hour before doors. After the party ended, we struck everything that night and were out of the venue by midnight.
