When they were young, the jewelry and accessories designer Rolly Robínson moved with their family to the tree-dense outskirts of Sevierville, Tenn., a small city with a bronze statue of Dolly Parton at its center. There, they spent their summers outside, playing make-believe in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. “Living semi-off the grid among bugs and reptiles and wild animals,” Robínson said recently, “it unlocked this whole other part of my brain, this untapped place.” They held on to this love of fantasy and the outdoors when they undertook another transformative move, to New York City, in 2011.
On a Tuesday afternoon in early June, Robínson invited seven friends to a lunch celebrating both their 13th year living in the New York area and the launch of their 13th collection from their jewelry line, Isshī. “This is my 13 going on 13 event,” Robínson said with a laugh. The venue was the Chinatown showroom of the lighting design company Blue Green Works, co-founded by Robínson’s friend Peter B. Staples. Each place setting had a banana-leaf mat, and hanging over the table was a flared green glass pendant lamp that called to mind a palm tree; together, the details made the space feel like a jungle oasis. It was a fitting place to see Isshī’s resort 2025 collection, in whose press materials Robínson likened the experience of heartbreak to a plane crashing into the rainforest: Modular leather-cord necklaces, crystal-embellished bracelets and hand-felted lamb’s-wool corsages all resembled carnivorous plants.
Guests were invited to touch and try on the pieces, which were displayed on tables and plates throughout the space. Around 1:30 p.m., a delivery driver arrived carrying bags of dim sum, and while Staples doled out the food, Robínson offered their guests a brief toast: “Everyone here today has been a rock for me at some point,” they said, reflecting on the highs and lows of their life in the city, from becoming a regular presence in the Manhattan nightlife circuit to ending a nine-year relationship. After dessert, the group climbed one by one onto the building’s fire escape, balancing coffee mugs that sloshed with wine. And as they talked, the disco music emanating from the studio’s speakers melded with the frenetic honking of traffic down below.
