Since Robert Isabell's death last week, reactions in the event community have been a mix of sadness and shock, as well as reverence and awe. Isabell's work earned him a reputation and legacy all his own, and as his passing sets in for those close to him, we spoke with a few friends and colleagues about what Isabell's work meant to them and the industry as a whole.
"He was never tired. I was exhausted just watching him. I remember he did the Gianni Versace memorial [in 1997]—I thought of this the other day because I laugh about it a lot—and he filled the Great Hall with hundreds and hundreds of white hydrangeas, just masses of white hydrangeas. And as he's walking out of the hall, leaving the museum, I said, 'Robert, what will we do with all these white hydrangeas that you left me here?' He said, 'Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.'"
—Chris Giftos, former head of special events at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who worked closely with Isabell on many events at the museum, including several galas for the Costume Institute and private events such as the marriage of Jonathan Tisch and Laura Steinberg
"Our businesses were very much alike, where you have three hours. You have months and months and months of preparing, but you have three hours to please the client. We had to be together when the curtain went up and everything had to be in place. I think we had a respect for each other, knowing that the bottom line is there are no excuses the next day. I think he was the first designer that didn't just do centerpieces. He took in the whole picture—where the bar should be, what the bar should look like—and the first designer to make everybody aware of lighting. He just was an innovator like that. He changed the whole format of how, design-wise, people show themselves off."
—Sean Driscoll, owner of catering company Glorious Food, which collaborated with Isabell on a number of events
"Besides being an incredibly sweet guy and a lovely human being, he was a visual genius. I think he had a tremendous impact on a lot of people's lives. A profound impact having been involved in events that were extremely important to those people, those corporations, those businesses. He was my one-man kitchen cabinet—he had incredible taste. I would always run by him things that I was doing for work, and I think we both responded to the same kind of understated elegance. Usually in big cities, especially like New York, you might have one person that might dominate a field, but you'll always have two or three or four other people that also are credible. I think in Robert's case, he single-handedly invented the party planning industry, and as far as I'm concerned there was nobody else, just Robert, all by himself."
—Ian Schrager, hotelier, co-founder of Studio 54, and close friend of Isabell
"To say it was a shock is an understatement. I worked with him July 4 in the Hamptons. The last time I saw him was at 9 p.m., when he left to go back to the city. I've known him since 1985, when I started to work on the installation of the Palladium. I worked for him directly through the Palladium for the Vanity Fair party and Cher perfume launch at the Diamond Horseshoe Lounge in the basement of the Paramount. When I was laid off from Palladium after six years, he hired me, and that was 18 years ago. We have traveled to Ryadh, London, Paris, Hong Kong, and throughout the U.S. together. He could be an extraordinary, generous man as well as 'the girl with the curl' [as in the nursery rhyme "There was a little girl who had a little curl/Right in the middle of her forehead;/When she was good, she was very, very good,/And when she was bad she was horrid."] But he was truly a gifted, self-made man, and although people have copied his work, there is no one alive today that can match his eye."
—Liz Garvin, founder of ERG Intentio LLC and Isabell's longtime friend and lighting designer
"I really cherished the time that I spent with him. He wasn't a tremendous communicator as far as spoken language goes, but he was a tremendous communicator in art and design language. So many people look at [our] work in a picture and, for him, pictures couldn't describe what was going on. It was an emotion, you had to be there. So for him, a photograph—no matter how beautiful a photograph it was—couldn't capture the feeling, it wasn't the same. It could only be experienced."
–Thomas Noel, founder of Event Design Associates, whose first foray into New York events was with Isabell's company
"When Robert took over a room, he wasn't just there to make the room look good—he made the people in it look good. He had this way of looking at things and he could see what they could be transformed into... He once hosted one of my sons' classes to show them his job and his studio. It was just before Halloween, and being the creative person he was, these kids got in there, and not only did they learn about flowers, he had built a little area with a Halloween backdrop. He even set up a little pumpkin patch, and each kid got to pick out and go home with a white pumpkin. He created something for them, something they wouldn't forget. It was just the way he did it. To everyone else, these things were always extravagant, but to him, it was just the way he did it."
—Chuck Garelick, special event services vice president at Elite Investigations, longtime friend of Isabell's, and former Studio 54 colleague
"Robert was great at designing things, but he was also the kind of person that would sit down on the floor with us. He would get out the broom and clean the floor and mop. He didn't just know how he wanted it to look and have people enjoy it, he was also hands-on. He wasn't just event design, he wasn't just floral design—we designed the lighting, we designed the flowers, the tablecloths, the napkins, the silverware. I don't think people are that meticulous anymore or particular about every single detail. I do it because I learned from him."
—Raul Avila, often referred to as Isabell's protégé, who worked with Isabell for 14 years before leaving in 2004 to start design firm Raul Avila Inc.
"I trusted Robert completely with any event I was doing. I remember a situation where he and I tried to convince a client to use a space that we both felt was right for an upcoming party. She was a believer because the previous year Robert had turned a disastrous setting into a fantasy for her, and this was the same group of people, so she felt the pressure to one-up herself. We took her to see it and she didn’t like it or where it was. Robert persisted. Finally, she called me and said, 'Do you trust your entire professional career on Robert and this decision?' 'Of course,' I said. I didn’t see the space again until an hour before the event began, and yes, he outdid himself and probably had three or four other events the same night."
—Roberta Greene, president of Phoenix Communication
"We first met over 10 years ago, when I was working on the flower show in Chicago, but I remember bringing him on to do the New York Restoration Society's Hulaween event in 2005. One of the big staples of the event since then has been Robert putting all of this stuff on the tables for people to dress up with. Eyeballs, fake teeth, big ears, and bloody patches—we weren't sure it would really work, but guests loved it. It was simple ideas like that that could just excite guests, and I think that's what's going to be lost. The simplicity of just one idea—and not all of these competing ideas—made his work so special. Everyone got it."
—Drew Becher, executive director of Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project, who hired Isabell to produce the organization's annual Hulaween gala
