The Gold Standard

Darling I am the real deal,” Colin Cowie laughs. 

The question he’s answering: given that he travels the world planning multi-million-dollar parties as a career, does he still enjoy entertaining during his time off? The answer is yes. 

“I do it three or four nights a week,” he explains. “I love being in the kitchen, I love setting a fantastic table and I love having people in my home. I like small dinner parties four people, six people, eight people. Every couple of months I’ll have ten or twelve for dinner or host a cocktail party, more often now that people are vaccinated. I have a big patio for dining outdoors. If anyone wants to dine outdoors, we can do that very easily.”

These days, he’s entertaining from his Miami residence (one of two home bases) while overseeing renovations of various areas of The Boca Raton. As creative director, he’s been brought in to give the historic private club a refreshing overhaul. Spa Palmera (unveiled this winter) and MB Supper Club are also graced by Cowie’s signature style.

“Everything needs a makeover from time to time,” he notes. “The space had great bones but hadn’t had love in many, many years. I gave it a new look and feel, like you’re in someone’s very fabulous living room. I think we came up with something very beautiful that has been very well-received. It’s been an exciting project from beginning to end.” 

In addition to curating the entire guest experience — from the staff uniforms to the custom fragrance pumped into the air — he’s also delivered Marisol, a new beachside restaurant on the patio. Architectural Digest, in naming Marisol among its Top 12 restaurants by celebrity designers, says Cowie outdid himself in his effort to “amplify the sexy and turn down the stuffy.”   

Since starting his work in Boca Raton, he’s also taken on projects at Pier Sixty-Six in Fort Lauderdale and the Four Seasons in Surfside, currently splitting his time between his New York and Miami homes. Focusing on South Florida, he says, “has been a nice change of pace. I’m not jumping on an airplane every five minutes.” 

Prior to COVID-19, he joked that his true home was American Airlines. Over the course of his career, Cowie estimates he’s flown at least 15 million miles planning events for clients and visiting countries around the world for inspiration. In addition to opulent personal celebrations, his 12-person hospitality group, Colin Cowie Lifestyle, also does considerable social and corporate work. 

“I’ve been doing this for over 35 years across five continents,” says Cowie who turns 60 next month. “It’s about having a very well-oiled machine, a lot of discipline in place and being able to communicate very clearly and effectively.”

Not bad for someone who first arrived in America in 1985 with little else, he recalls, than “one impeccably cut suit and huge dreams.” He left his native South Africa, he states, “because I didn’t believe in apartheid. I didn’t think it was a fair political system and I didn’t want to spend the hardest working years of my life in a country that didn’t believe in the future.”

He moved to Los Angeles and started his own catering company and, through word of mouth, began building his business and establishing himself as one of Hollywood’s go-to event planners. “You name the celebrity,” Cowie reveals, “I’ve worked with them.” 

InStyle, a fledgling magazine at the time, hired him as a contributing editor and shortly after that, AMC Networks offered him his own show, “Everyday Elegance with Colin Cowie,” that aired for five years. Cowie also had a seven-year stint with HSN hosting “Colin Cowie Lifestyle.” He began authoring the first of ten books on food, style and entertaining and partnered with luxury goods companies like Lenox to design his own line of high-end china and flatware. His latest book, “The Gold Standard,” published earlier this year, is a comprehensive how-to for any business owner in a client or customer-facing industry. 

“How do you make your business stand out in a crowd?  You create an emotional connection with your customers,” he says. “It’s all about how you make them feel. Because in a world with so many choices, we know that the emotionally connected customer is going to stay loyal.” 

As Cowie’s brand flourished and his clientele list boomed, so did the budgets he was given. “I began doing a tremendous amount of work in the Middle East,” he shares. “And that’s when I started doing these mega, mega, $25 million parties all over the world.” 

While he’s not supposed to divulge details, he will say that the 2005 wedding for the Heir Apparent of Qatar “certainly stood out as among the biggest. I mean, 747 jumbo jets, and just epic proportions. It was crazy.”

Another career highlight was Oprah Winfrey’s 2005 Legends Ball, a 362-person gala at the Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara that capped off a three-day weekend of events — all planned and executed by Cowie — honoring 25 of the most influential Black female icons in modern history. Honorees included Maya Angelou, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and Toni Morrison with then-Senator Barack and Michelle Obama, Sidney Poitier, Lionel Richie, Barbra Streisand and Tom Cruise among the guests. No expense was spared for the white-tie celebration in the resort’s ballroom, which Cowie outfitted with a glamourous art-deco theme that featured thousands of long-stemmed red roses, a menu by Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and live performances by Michael McDonald and Chaka Khan.

“I’ve never stood in a room and been surrounded by such greatness in my life,” Cowie marvels. “It was extraordinary. Oprah is one of the most influential people I’ve ever worked with. I’ve done every one of her major events and we’ve had an extraordinary journey together.”

In 2020, Cowie pulled off one of his most show-stopping (and personal) celebrations yet: his own wedding to commodities trader Danny Peuscovich. A ten-day itinerary of events in South Africa culminated in the couple’s breathtaking vows exchanged in Cape Town. 

“First off,” Cowie explains, “I never thought I was going to get married, I thought it was something I did for other people.” 

That changed, he says, when he met his now-husband. “I had actually planned our wedding before we got engaged,” he shares. “I used my team in Los Angeles, my team in New York and I hired a local team in South Africa. We spent a year planning. It was incredible. We had a small group for the first three days and then 176 people for the next seven. I took everyone on safari for three days and then we flew everyone to Cape Town. We did several events in Cape Town, then moved everyone over to the wildlands. Our wedding was at the Boschendal Vineyard. It started at 6 p.m. and finished the next morning at 6:30 a.m.”

It turns out they were quite lucky, with their February festivities taking place just weeks before the world essentially shut down. For the next year and a half, nearly all weddings and celebrations were canceled, dramatically streamlined or postponed due to the pandemic.

With life now regaining a sense of normalcy, Cowie and his team are in overdrive. “Everything came back at 120 miles an hour and everything is extremely busy,” he says. “Eighteen months of weddings that had been postponed are now on the front burner. Thursdays and Sundays are now the new Saturdays.”

Now, he says, gatherings big and small have more meaning than ever. “People want to have fun, they want to get dressed, have their hair done, bring out the jewels and enjoy life and glamour again. The only difference is now we do it with a lot of safety in mind. We test on site. Our guest lists are a little smaller. People are opting for outdoors where they possibly can. Each person has their own level of comfort, but everyone rises to the occasion depending on what their level of comfortability is.”

As the holidays approach, he believes South Florida is the ideal place to celebrate. “It’s much easier here,” he notes. “I think it’s exciting. It’s a great time not only to celebrate one another but to celebrate your home. It’s time to bring out the china, bring out the crystal, the linens and the silver. Decorate and bring things alive again.”

And while most of our grand festivities were put on hold due to COVID-19, Cowie never doubted they were gone for good. “Love doesn’t wait for anyone and it never goes out of style,” he explains. “The human spirit is an indomitable thing and you cannot hold it back.”