Mixing business with fun

FROM kitchen utensils to bedroom toys, direct sales parties have practically become part of the furniture in living rooms across the land down through the years.

Invented by Tupperware in the 1950s, most of us will remember our grandmothers and mothers splashing the cash on everything from storage boxes to make-up over the latest gossip, tea and sandwiches — that’s ‘cocktails and canapés’, to younger readers.

In an era of e-shopping and belt tightening, however, where consumers can have discount goods delivered to their door without even changing out of their pyjamas, is there still a place for such retro luxury goods soirées?