Last night I was lucky enough to have Wendy Goodman of NY Magazine as my guest for dinner and we had a truly delightful evening. She came to my house for dinner – I always prefer dinner at home – and she got to meet Nene and all my hundreds of guppies. We stood out on the terrace and watched a beautiful sunset over the Hudson River and she talked about the new book that she’s about to publish on Gloria Vanderbilt.
The World of Gloria Vanderbilt is a pictorial biography that features portraits of Vanderbilt and her extraordinary homes, filled with original and influential decorating ideas, by photographic legends like Richard Avedon, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Inge Morath, Horst P. Horst, Francesco Scavullo, and Annie Leibovitz. Wendy worked with Gloria Vanderbilt and all captions are in first person and from how she describes it, it was a wonderful experience to spend this much time with such a legend.
We also spoke about the future of Architectural Digest now that Paige Rense is stepping down as editor-in-chief. Another topic we spent much time on is how so many young people in our industry are unaware of the great designers from 30 years ago like Billy Baldwin amd Angela Donghia and how little they are aware of the history of design and how those people helped to create where we are right now.
The time spent with Wendy flew by and I so look forward to our next one. Who knows what we’ll discuss then!
#1 by melissa on June 17, 2010 - 3:50 pm
GLORIA HAS SUCH A LOVELY FACE.. AND STILL DOES WELL INTO HER 80′S…
SHE IS IN FACT THE MOTHER OF ANDERSON COOPER OF CNN….
XXOO
MELISSA
#2 by The Countrypolitan on June 17, 2010 - 4:11 pm
Sounds like a wonderful evening… a very enriching time spent on a very personal level… nice ~Terri
#3 by Gary Nelling on June 17, 2010 - 4:41 pm
Vicente – I really agree that it is a benefit for design professionals and artists of all stripes to know the history of the great practitioners of their profession as well as the links between them. Much in the way that the Bauhaus, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and FLW taught us to think about buildings in fresh, modern ways, Jean-Michel Frank, Billy Baldwin, Angelo Donghia, John Dickenson, and Ward Bennett taught us to look at interior space in the same new way. The Bauhaus in particular embraced the integration of the building arts and fine arts, and still influences our thinking today. And I’ve learned much about space from viewing the photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Eugene Atget.
I wonder what the legacy of your/our generation will be. I don’t know of a single book exclusively about Joe D’Urso or Robert Bray and Michael Schiable, and am the more grateful for your books and those of John Saladino. No design idea comes entirely out of whole cloth. I believe we must all learn from history including our recent past! I still have a copy of a 1970s Interior Design magazine with Angelo Donghia’s classic modern living room with forest green walls, white trim, bleached wood floors and a silver leaf ceiling on the cover! – Gary
PS Melissa – Gloria Vanderbilt / Anderson Cooper. No kidding!
#4 by Dennis on June 17, 2010 - 6:41 pm
And what do you think is the future of AD in this challenging economic time? Personally, I think AD lost touch with contemporary readers over the years. The interior design featured generally tended to celebrate a level of “perfection” that made the residences appear to be beautiful hotels, rather than homes with individual personalities. Overall, the crackle of excitement one gets when opening Elle Decor or House Beautiful was lacking for me in AD. Are you able to comment on this?
#5 by helen louisy on June 17, 2010 - 10:58 pm
I think Wendy Goodman was briefly at House and Garden as design editor before it was shut down? Didn’t she also write a book on Tony Duquette?
Is she still with partner Oberto Gilli, a top interiors photographer?
As an aside, former House & Garden editor
Dominique Browning has written a memoir
about losing her job called Slow Love. She describes her eventual recovery from losing her
job. A great satisfying read. She also has a blog
I read daily along with yours titled Slow Love Life
at slowlovellife.com.
Helen.
#6 by Mrs. Blandings on June 18, 2010 - 3:31 am
Some people do know, Vicente. Some people are quite aware of design history, or legacy, and many read your blog. I promise.
#7 by colette on June 18, 2010 - 4:42 pm
does it occur to others, as it does me, that Paige Rense is not entirely to blame for the bland pages of AD, which I seldom buy anymore?? Following on from your ‘Dinner with Wendy’…it is a personal pet peeve of mine that not only clients, but designers too, now look to hotels for inspiration instead of the brilliantly poetically executed interiors of the past. Pick up Spanish AD, and until recently, the difficult to obtain Russian AD and you’ll discover a world of excitement! Very much looking forward to seeing how this next chapter of American AD develops…and please lets support the mag – we need it.
#8 by Gary Nelling on June 18, 2010 - 6:39 pm
Colette – You raise a fascinating chicken-and-egg question. Are there as many or more innovative designers out there today who aren’t getting the same level of support from publications? Or have the majority settled for minor variations on the themes established in the 1970s-80s and the magazines have less innovation to display? It did seem like a golden era then. (Perhaps because I was young. Maybe I would be more jazzed about the concrete block and plywood aesthetic of Dwell if I were still 30.) Maybe when new ground is broken, it’s hard for the next generation to maintain the same level of intensity. Assimilation and consolidation follows innovation. Or maybe I’m just repeating the same attitudes my parents did when they extolled the jazz era and bemoaned rock n roll! Maybe they were right! LOL! – Gary
#9 by colette on June 25, 2010 - 2:52 pm
Dear Gary,
Chicken and egg is right! And I simply dont know WHAT the answer is although… in my personal experience working in North America, I was frequently asked to create ‘something different’ only to find my clients close to tears as their (jealous) next door neighbour sneered and said ‘we’ll I dont really get it’!! Regardless we cant blame banality on the 80′s either….have you SEEN the swaths of riotous colour and chintz Jay Specter and Michael Taylor affected!! Fabulous. The good news is, I dont doubt for a minute that all this dismal news in the air is going to make us all throw taupe to the wind and start taking big ol’ risks again!!! Tho, of course… I always have!! LOL back. Colette
#10 by Gary Nelling on June 25, 2010 - 7:11 pm
Colette – Oh, I wasn’t clear! I think fondly of the 1970s and 80s as a golden era of creativity in interior design and architecture, and though I am thinking of the minimalists designers and architects in NYC and the West Coast who worked in white, tans, grays and black, you are right that there was also intriguing and attractive color, both subtle and bold, in some designers work. Many designers and architects did both! I don’t think of it as an era of banality at all!
I believe the marvelous work of the modernists and minimalists in that era and set a standard that others with few exceptions have built on more than challenged since. They even affected traditional design! In the 70s and 80s I think AD showed some cutting edge work and then settled into a formula, but perhaps there have not been as many designers and architects breaking and making new rules in recent decades as then, so perhaps the cause isn’t merely editorial. And perhaps I’m an old-fashioned modernist (how is that for an oxymoron?) who doesn’t recognize the raw concrete and 2×4 interiors in other magazines as a step forward! LOL again! – Gary