Interior designer Nate Berkus discusses his approach to interiors and the inspiration for his latest book.
Transcript
My design aesthetic is a layering
of things that, sort of, are left as they are.
I don't want anything perfect.
I like dings, I like imperfection
I like things that feel well-worn.
I like to reach for a doorknob
that hundreds of people have touched before me.
And so, architecturally, I'm always about a restoration
or reclaiming things, and then aesthetically,
the less perfect something is,
the more, sort of mottled a finish can be,
the more worn, that's my favorite thing.
And it's archival.
That's how it feels to me.
It feels like things have been around
for a very long time.
The book is something that I'm really proud of.
The title is The Things That Matter.
And what the book is really a reaction to
is people scrambling.
And you know who you are.
You fill your homes with things
that you don't have any connection to.
When people start rushing to assemble an interior
because they're copying something
that somebody else had, they haven't stopped
to ask themselves the question of what is important to them
and what will really represent them in their spaces.
That, to me, is really a shame.
It's not gonna have a soul.
It's not gonna have the opportunity
to share with the world who you are
and how you self-identify and what makes you happy
and how you can extend yourself
through your home, to others.
And the book, highlights different interiors,
including this one, that really sing
with personality and individuality.
Really, spaces that represent people.
It's photographed really beautifully.
It's very autobiographical.
I've always believed that design
is sort of cumulative of all the experiences that we've had.
The places we've gone, the people we've met,
everything we've sort of born witness to.
And so when I was writing the book
I realized I can't really write a book
about my own design evolution
and the evolution of these other interiors
and the people who live in them
without really digging deep and talking about
what's formed me as a person and a decorator.
What's opened mine eyes.
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Nate Berkus Discusses His Approach to Interiors | Interior Design | Architectural Digest