Affairs to remember

When the world’s rich and famous need to throw an important party, they call on a Filipino to help them turn it into the event of a lifetime.

Event designer and floral artist Jerry Sibal may well be New York’s best-kept secret, but not for very much longer. For the past 15 years he’s been designing spectacular environments for VIPs to hold their special occasions in, and has elicited “wows” from guests like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Celine Dion, Vanessa Williams, Bono, Isaac Mizrahi and Mario Batali.

Together with business partner Edwin Josue, Sibal was recently in Manila to promote his latest project, a lavish coffee-table book that immortalizes his best work in full-page color photos. Called An Event to Remember: Designing Spectacular Special Occasions, the book is being issued by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, an imprint of prestigious art-book publisher Harry Abrams. (Other titles in Abrams’ fall catalog include tomes on Chanel, Dior and Picasso.)

The book will give readers a peek into a glamorous world that is the product of seemingly limitless budgets and Sibal’s limitless imagination in utilizing them.

For the 70th birthday of former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, Jerry turned concert venue Carnegie Hall into a floral wonderland-cum-ballroom by taking out the front rows of seats and putting tables on the stage. He then decorated the tables with “mini-trees” fashioned from red roses and white lilies sprouting from tall clear glass vases.

“When the Clintons and world dignitaries entered the room, they went ‘Wow!’ because it was the first time they’d seen a space like that in Carnegie Hall,” Sibal says.

Then there were the two events he staged for Virgin Atlantic mogul Richard Branson, to launch the airline’s maiden flight from Chicago to London, then to introduce First Class. Branson invited 10 designers from all over the US to pitch their ideas and singled out Sibal’s as the best.

“My concept was more organic because it’s the in thing now, but it had to go with their color scheme so I used blue and red.”

Branson flew Sibal and company to Chicago, where Jerry had to transform a raw space into a modern-organic visual feast, illuminating sleek Lucite boxes with LEDs. “Mr. Branson came to me and said, ‘Wow, good job. Next project we’d like to work with you again. It’s great to see an artist who understands our concept.’”

Then there’s Sibal’s most extravagant event to date, a wedding for Jennifer Hechtman, daughter of one of the owners of the Halston fashion group. Sibal normally requires a budget of US$50,000 minimum, but for this milestone, he was given half a million dollars to spend on the flowers alone. Yup, you read right: half a million dollars just for flowers.

“I invite them to my studio, interview them, get information about the dates, what type of event, what’s their vision,” Sibal says about his planning process. “Most of the time they don’t know how to interpret what they want, so it’s up to artist to really understand. Like for this, they just wanted it in the Hotel Setai, which is the most expensive hotel in Miami Beach. They’re so influential and rich that, even if they’re based in Chicago, they used their jet to fly in and out to see my presentation.”

Friends warned him that his new clients were difficult to please, but as soon as they stepped into his studio they uttered the word most commonly used to describe Sibal’s work: “Wow.” It didn’t take much for the designer to convince them to go with an Art Deco theme.

“When you talk about Miami you talk about Art Deco, but Art Deco in Miami is too colorful, too Latin-flavored,” Sibal says. “So I said let’s use Art Deco but put Hollywood glamour and 1920s style.” He went with a dramatic black-and-white motif and carried the drama to its extreme, welcoming the 450 guests with fireworks on the beach, then leading them through a path of pillar lights to a tent for the reception. Inside everything was crystals and mirrors, from the custom-made chandelier hanging over the dance floor to the tables and plates.

I ask Sibal how he manages to put the “wow” factor into every event. He replies it’s a matter of knowing not only his clientele but also their guests. “Like for Citigroup, their main guest was Lee Kuan Yew. So I said, I know he’s Singaporean; he must love orchids. Or, I know they’re Chinese; they love peonies. I know they love red, so I use red. It’s a matter of understanding who your clients are and getting what they like.”

Sibal’s diverse background in architecture, floral arranging, interior design and art made him a natural as an event designer. Born to Filipino-Chinese parents and educated at a Chinese school, he earned a degree in architecture from Adamson University, served as an adviser to the Bayanihan dance troupe and taught Chinese brush painting at Ayala Museum before moving to the United States in 1992. In New York City he worked with renowned floral designer Preston Bailey, from whom he learned the tricks of the trade. “I learned not to overlap things but deal with them one at a time. Because I would do three or four projects at same time so I wasn’t focused on one, but all four. He said you have to focus on one project before going on to the next one.”

Together they collaborated on events for Oprah Winfrey (the O magazine launch), Givenchy and Joan Rivers (“She’s funny and knows what she wants”), but all the work was credited to Bailey so Sibal felt he was losing his identity. He decided to strike out on his own and founded his own company, Design Fusion, with real estate broker Edwin Josue handling the business side of things. “I’m the one holding him up to the budget,” says Josue, who met Sibal through mutual friend Rachy Cuna. “People have been saying we’re like House and Garden. They ask for interior design advice and I introduce them to Jerry.”

Design Fusion’s most difficult client so far has been the late Leona Helmsley, known to the hotel world as “the Queen of Mean.” “Leona was never happy,” Sibal reveals, “but she loved beautiful things, flowers. She just could not stand, like, if she saw a dead leaf she thought you had to change everything. She was a perfectionist.”

“And she always needed a chair for her puppy,” adds Josue.

More recently, David Rockwell, the international architect who heads DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting for AIDS), asked Sibal to design a tabletop for the Architectural Digest Home Design Show. (Other designers invited included Anna Sui, Ralph Lauren, and Vivienne Tam.) Inspired by a curtain he bought for his apartment, Sibal used Swarovski crystals, which he noticed might have influenced Rockwell’s later design for the Oscar stage. “He did Swarovski crystal curtains for the Oscars — I would say he got the inspiration from this design.”

Another event this year was the April Food Bank of New York dinner honoring Jon Bon Jovi. There Sibal met not only the rocker but also food-world rock stars like Anthony Bourdain, Rachael Ray and Food Bank chair Mario Batali.

Sibal is hoping to launch An Event to Remember at Cipriani in New York on Oct. 19 with Batali and the same roster of guests; considering the celebrities alphabetized in his Rolodex we’re sure it will be one star-studded event.

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“An Event to Remember: Designing Spectacular” Special Occasions by Jerry Sibal will be previewed in Manila on Sept. 15 at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel.