I’ll find items that I know will eventually be great for a page, so I do save throughout the year. It might be a new but vintage-looking piece that a brand is makingâsomething that if you stumbled upon it in a French flea market, you’d be so happy, but you can never order multiples of. Like the Hector Finch light featured in this edition: Itâs new but has a vintage, whimsical feel. Or the Cutter Brooks patchwork dog bedsâthose are fabulous. I have pictures of them from when Iâd seen [Amanda Brooks] in Milan during Salone, so when I saw this house, I thought, Oh, that fits the vibe of the house, even if it wasnât actually in there.
A lot of the time, the best things I find are from word of mouth. Like at a dinner, Iâll be sitting next to some interesting person from a slightly different world than me, and theyâll say, Oh, do you know about that one guy who makes those spoons? Or something like that. And I’m like, No, I donât know about that guy who makes those spoons! Thatâs one of my favorite ways in, and is, among other reasons, why I go to dinners and parties and try to be socially out and about in the world.
And sometimes when Iâm traveling, Iâll go find a neighborhood that I havenât explored thatâs known for having interesting stores. Iâll go up and down the streets, pop into shops, and talk to people. In New York, Iâll talk to people like Kate Brodsky, who has KRB NYC, or John Derian, and Iâll ask if theyâve started carrying anything interesting that I should know about. So itâs a lot of sourcing through other sources, too.
It takes a village. Do you consider price when youâre making your picks?
I consider it in the sense that I like to have as much of a mix of price as I can. I try not to make it something thatâs completely unattainable. Sometimes we have houses where we joke that the idea of âshop the lookâ is sort of funny, because you canâtâeverythingâs one of a kind. Houses like those can be a little challenging, but then I tend to pull in some more accessible sources to balance it out. Design Notes is not exactly a âGet the Look for Lessâ type of feature, right? Weâre here to inspire, and I take that very seriously in these pages. Itâs an idea, itâs creative, itâs funâand some of it is attainable.
How much does this process seep into your own life? Has this research shaped your sense of style, and the look of your own home?
It has changed my sense of style. Once you know most of what’s on the market, it makes you scrutinize everything else so much more. Iâll know when there’s an authentic version of something versus a knock-off, for instance. Or if Iâm traveling and able to find a truly original source for a type of piece Iâm seeing reproduced on the luxury market, thatâs always exciting.
Iâve been whittling my sense of personal style more and more as Iâve gathered more knowledge of the market. The more you see, the less you like. Thereâs a misconception that if youâre a market editor that youâll love this, and that, and so many different home things. But the reality is that to be an editor, you really love very little. Thatâs the editing process. Somebody shows you 50 buttonsâone of them is a good button, right? So much of the job is not liking everything.
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