SPEAKER_01: Today's episode of Revisionist History was recorded live with AC Hotels by Marriott at their New York Times Square property. I sat down with the amazing Nate Berkus for a freewheeling, hilarious conversation about things like Nate's mom, the television shows we hate, and of course his incredible career as a designer. I have to say I enjoyed this conversation so, so much. The whole thing was set up by AC Hotels. AC Hotels is a European inspired hotel brand where every detail has been refined, crafted, and considered to ensure a seamless stay. You can wake up to a delicious breakfast with hand-shaved prosciutto, freshly baked croissants, and made-to-order hot items. You can unwind in the AC lounge with your custom gin tonic, served in a scientifically engineered glass, and get a restful night's sleep with their relaxing lavender turned down ritual. AC Hotels are intuitively designed to provide everything
you need and nothing you don't. Thank you so much to AC Hotels for being such a wonderful host for what was a surprisingly fun evening. Visit ac-hotels.com and learn more and elevate your next day. AC Hotels is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotels.
SPEAKER_00: Pushkin.
SPEAKER_01: Hello, hello everyone. We have a little surprise for you today. It's a conversation I recently had with Nate Berkus. If that name rings a bell, he's a famous interior designer. You may know him from his appearances over the years on the Oprah Winfrey Show. You may have read one of his books. You may even have some of his products in your home. Anyway, this all came about because AC Hotels wanted to host an event about design and creativity at their Times Square location in New York City. And we decided to invite Nate to come, which turned out, as you will hear, to be an
inspired choice. I had so much fun doing this. We talked about our moms, about Paris, about the TV shows that fill us with rage, and a million other things, but mostly about design and creativity.
Nate is as charming and funny as he is smart. Anyway, here it is. This all took place in the rooftop bar of the AC Hotel in New York, with all kinds of fabulous cocktails and appetizers being passed around. Just a heads up, you may hear some city noises in the background. I hope you enjoyed
this live episode as much as I did. I wanted to say before I started, I think we should get
this little order, a bit of business out of the way. I've scored enormous points with my significant other this evening by interviewing you. Kate, normally if I'm interviewing like the, you know, hypothetically the CEO of whatever, Microsoft, she would say, oh, interesting, and then go back to her phone. When word leaked that I was interviewing Nate Burkus,
it was like, Nate Burkus? It was like, you can't imagine the kind of celebrity power you have in my home. You are welcome. Yes. So, no, it's huge. It's huge for all of us in the Gladwell household.
SPEAKER_02: May I just say that when I told my mother that I was going to be a guest on Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, her response was, why? That's not very nice. We're going to be talking about
SPEAKER_01:
travel and design and your career and all kinds of interesting things.
Before we get to your career, though, you and I are both, both have the travel bug because I have a theory that the travel bug is innate. It's not acquired. You either have it or you don't.
So is the design bug. So, oh, so is it. Oh, good. So we're talking, we're trafficking. And I have a little story about myself, which I think proves this is true. But before I tell
that story, I wanted you tell me, when did you realize, what is the first evidence the world has
that Nate has the travel bug? How young are you? I think it, yeah, I think it was the first time I
SPEAKER_02:
was somewhere without a chaperone, like a proper chaperone. I did a semester abroad in Europe
and moved to Paris and sort of lived in this tiny little box at the top of a beautiful building with
a shared bathroom. It was amazing. It was amazing. I sold all my clothes, spending money.
SPEAKER_01: But I knew. Were you wearing all black at that point?
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to wear all black. Yeah. I was wearing Ralph Lauren and that's not what.
SPEAKER_01:
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no. So yeah, I had to try to sell that. Get some money for a leather jacket.
SPEAKER_02: But I was found myself in Paris alone. And I remember walking the streets and feeling
SPEAKER_02: really good, feeling like really solid and not being afraid and not being intimidated and being fascinated by modern life in an ancient place. And I think that that was the first moment for me. And when I travel, I don't I'm not really reaching for the sort of where the guides say you
should go. For me, it's it's what is most indicative of that place as seen through objects. So I'm in the markets where people buy their pots and pans and the fabric they make the potato sacks out of. And those are the kinds of things that I'm always searching for. But that that trip to Paris, that first move really to Paris was when I knew I would never really stay in one place for
SPEAKER_02: a long time. My my version of that story is we moved from England to Canada when I was six.
SPEAKER_01: And as a picture of us about to get on the train to go to the we took a boat, took the Empress of England. We're about to get on the train to go to the boat. And so there's a family shot. My oldest brother is weeping. He's leaving the only country he's ever known, all his friends. My middle brother is clinging to my mother anxiously. You know, it's a long race, 10 days on a through uncharted, you know, stormy seas. I look like someone who's just given me a million dollars. I am five years old and this is the single greatest moment. I'm like,
SPEAKER_01: are you kidding me? We're going to some unknown place on a boat for 10 days. This is amazing. That's amazing. Couldn't wait to get out of there. That was when I look at the photo, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's exactly you. Nothing has changed. So I want to go back to you in Paris.
SPEAKER_01: You're how old? 17. Did you experience
Paris at 17 the same way you would have experienced today? In other words, were you doing the same things that in a new city that you do today only without realizing why
with the habits there? Yeah, they were. I still love doing all the things that I did when I was
SPEAKER_02: that age in that city, no matter where I am, allowing myself to get lost, not relying on,
you know, an Uber or a driver or whatever it is, but really digging in and seeing the space and seeing the place, trying to figure out how to ask the right people where the best Chinese food is or the best croissant or the best coffee. Like I, you know, I have this aversion to being told what to
do when I'm, I have this aversion being told what to do. How's that? Let me just leave it at that.
SPEAKER_02:
But especially when I'm traveling because I want to figure it out for myself. And if a friend says, you have to eat here, you have to see this, or you have to go to this museum or see this historic home, I'll do it in two seconds. But I also like to be the guy that has days doing nothing
SPEAKER_02:
and just kind of soaking in what the culture might bring. I want to go back to something you said
SPEAKER_01: about allowing yourself to get lost, which is nearly impossible today, but all of us over the age of 40 remember a time when that was kind of not the norm. It was really easy to get lost and thrilling in this way. I remember when I, as a 15 year old, me and my brother went to London and spent, we spent two weeks with my uncle and aunt. They lived just on the kind of furthest reaches of West London. I would get on the Parsons Green tube and randomly get off at a stop and walk
around. I had no, I knew nothing about London. I had never read a guidebook. What I knew about London, I knew from Dickens. Yeah. Wow. And I get, I totally get that. I had the best time.
SPEAKER_02: You're a little bit afraid, but it's anticipatory and you never know what you're going to stumble upon. You know where I, the coolest place, the best restaurant. You know where I ended up going
SPEAKER_01:
without realizing I was there until many years later, Malcolm McLaren, the founder of the Sex
Pistols had a clothing store with, was it Vivian Westwood? On something road in Chelsea. That I
SPEAKER_01: don't know, but yes, I remember. I went there. I was 15. I had no clue what was going on. I was like, Oh, this looks interesting. But you found it. I found it. And it felt differently because
SPEAKER_02: you found it. It's like, you know, and I, yeah, I mean, I, to allow yourself to get lost. It wasn't that, it wasn't really that scary. Now. I mean, as a dad, I think it's super scary. I would kill my kids. They're like, what are you talking about? There's a low jack and your shoe and we have an apple tag and your forehead and you know, you're, you know, but I can still see you. But I think, you know, it was just, I don't know, there was just something about being in a foreign capital in a new culture, in a, in a place that, that was so old and so beautiful and the architecture was so special to my eye at that age that I, I wanted to be lost. I wanted to be lost every day. Does that, if we think about that phrase as a kind of metaphor, does it also describe your
SPEAKER_01:
SPEAKER_00:
SPEAKER_01:
professional practice as a interior designer? Yeah, I think it describes it in that I'm really afraid
SPEAKER_02: of people who present themselves as like they've, they're mastered a craft. Like I just, it's the weirdest sort of place. I've been doing this for almost 30 years now, assembling spaces, hopefully that have meaning for the people that live there, but I am trying really hard to do that, but it's all evolving constantly. And you know, in any creative endeavor, if you've made decisions about how things need to be or should be, you're missing every other sort of bright, shiny thing you can
reach down and pick up and incorporate. And so I think after this long in design, I'm, I'm
adept at scale. I'm adept at certain things that have practices, sort of refined a skill set that's a practical skill set, but the creative, the magical, the imaginative, yeah, I'm always lost. I love it. Yeah. So walk me through, you're in Paris at 17. Tell me, take me from there to, to your, how
SPEAKER_01:
you became a designer. So I, I'm, I'm 17. I've sold all of my Ralph Lauren clothes to the lovely kids
SPEAKER_02:
in the neighborhood. What do you like, just briefly, in two sentences, what do you like at 17?
SPEAKER_01:
Guys. And fries.
SPEAKER_01: Nate, you can do better than that. And I still do. You can do better than that. What do I like at 17?
Do you, if my, if 17 year old Malcolm and 17 year old Nate meet. Yeah, we would probably talk about
SPEAKER_02: music. I was listening to like the Smiths and you know, so I music, music, my Walkman was on my whatever disc man, Walkman, whatever, Walkman. And I liked clothes. And I liked history. I was interested
SPEAKER_02: in history. And at that age, that's what we would have talked about. What's that? We don't talk about,
SPEAKER_01:
I don't think he would have talked about clothes. If you saw the clothes I was wearing when I was 17. You may have been a little further ahead of me, but you came, you grew up in Chicago. No, I was actually
SPEAKER_02:
raised in suburban Minneapolis. And I split my time between Southern California and Minneapolis. My parents divorced when I was two and they both remarried instantly. My mother actually tried to get married before her divorce was legal for my dad. They, they went and they said, ma'am, you're
SPEAKER_02: actually still married. My mother was like, oh, so go home and wash my hair. Yeah. But they, they both
SPEAKER_02:
remarried and my stepfather was a radiologist in Minnesota. And so I was raised there and then, and then I went away to school for high school over out on the East Coast. So I've been all over the place.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I see. Yeah. But you do sound more sophisticated than I was at 17. I don't know about that. I don't
SPEAKER_01:
SPEAKER_02: know. I mean, listen, I don't even know if I'm sophisticated now. My, my favorite restaurant worldwide is the State Fair of Minnesota. So it's just, it's just the best guys.
SPEAKER_01:
When you say you were interested in history at that age, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: I was, I was interested in architecture and I was interested in spaces and I was interested in a little bit in mythology and a lot in sort of like royal palaces and sort of aristocratic homes
and like really beautiful, beautiful homes in castles and, and hotel particulaire and things
like that. I was interested in the intersection between history and design, even though I didn't know that I would make a life for myself working in design, but I was always very sensitive to environments. I grew up with a mother who was an interior designer. So our home was constantly changing. I was, my job was to carry these old wallpaper books in and out of the trunk of her
car that weighed more than I did. Did you, did you like your mother's sense of style?
SPEAKER_02: I appreciated it. She used a lot of old things, but no, I mean, it was French country. She knows this. We've talked about this. Trust me. She's listening right now. I'm glad you said that because I had a sudden panic thought that your mom would tune into
SPEAKER_01:
this. She's tuning in and I'll be living with you and under witness protection. No, my mom knew that,
SPEAKER_02: but I, what I admired about my mother's style was that she, she never reached for new things. She always reached for antique furniture or vintage things and she loved an auction or an estate sale. And that was how I got the bug of caring so much about assembling interiors for other people with things that have a little bit of history and soul. Yeah. Did your mother have
SPEAKER_01:
the travel bug? My mother had the shopping bug. Yeah. So, I mean, my mother was very intrepid. She
SPEAKER_02:
was, you know, she had a point of view and growing up, actually, now that I, now that you asked me that, I knew at a very young age that pearls came from China or, you know, great shoes came from
France or great leather came from this place from, you know, the tanneries were here. That's probably why when I land somewhere now, I'm always interested in like the local craft, what's made there, what they do the best job doing. That's what I always want to know. It doesn't have to be expensive, but like, what's the, what's the best thing in, in Sri Lanka? What's the best thing in Barcelona? Like what's the coolest craft in Oaxaca? What are they known for? Yeah. You said earlier
SPEAKER_01: that you're very interested in investigating the culture of a place through its artifact. Yeah,
through its craft. And what you're describing in your mother is a version of that. Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_02:
It is. You know, my favorite, this is one of my favorite things to do, by the way, is to locate
SPEAKER_01:
someone's passions in their, in an earlier form found in their parents. My favorite, can I, can I go into total digression? Yeah. My favorite example of this was I was once at a party in LA and I met a very famous LA manager, maybe one of the most famous of all the managers.
He was famous because he was the hardest negotiator in Hollywood. He was like the guy
who would argue with you for, you know, two weeks for the down to the slightest detail of a contract.
And I was chatting with him and I was like, oh, tell me about your childhood. And he goes, oh yeah, well, my parents were, and I was really raised on my grandfather. What's your grandfather do? Well, he was in the button business. It's like, oh, what was that like? Well, every day
after school, I would go to my grandfather's office in the garment district and I would sit in a chair and I would listen to him argue over the, you know, the, the 10th of a cent difference
in a large order of buttons. Pause. And I'm like, exactly. And he looked at me like,
what are you talking about? No connection. No connection. Didn't see it. Same thing. He takes the buttons and he takes it to Hollywood and makes a fortune. Exactly. Right? Exactly. So
SPEAKER_02:
he's negotiating over the 10th of a cent of the price of a button still. But you, do you,
SPEAKER_01:
do you see what you see where I'm going? Of course. Of course. I'm following this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And you're right. I mean, you know, my mom and I have talked about over the years, she's asked me, like, what do you think my influence on you was as a young person? And then obviously as in design and it was, she taught me how to source. And I think a good designer has to be really good at
SPEAKER_02: sourcing because even in today's age where, you know, obviously like at, at any given moment at
SPEAKER_02: any place in the world, you can find exactly what you're looking for online. It's not really enough. You have to know who makes the hand painted lampshades on Etsy and who makes the Mexican
pineapples in Morelia and then who, you know, it's just, and then who can put it all together for you and turn it into a coffee table. So, you know, you've got to know the guy in Brooklyn too.
So it's, it's, but sourcing is like, is, is what she gave me and especially a love of vintage and craft and handmade. We'll be right back after the break.
SPEAKER_01:
This episode of Revisionist History is brought to you by AC Hotels by Marriott. Design and travel can inspire one's own creative freedom, which is why it's so important to see the world and take note of the details that move you. AC Hotels captures that attention to detail, ensuring their guests have a remarkable stay. It's a European inspired hotel brand where every detail has been refined, designed, crafted, and considered to ensure a seamless stay. A simple yet elevated design
creates an uncomplicated experience, providing everything you need and nothing you don't. From New
York City to Barcelona, Santiago to Melbourne, there are over 230 AC Hotel locations in 35 countries, making it the perfect travel partner as you explore the world. Our host space, the AC Hotel near Times Square, was the ideal place to wind down over custom crafted cocktails and tapas in their rooftop lounge. AC Hotels takes ownership in the effortless, pride in the precise, and inspiration in style. Visit ac-hotels.com and learn more about the perfectly precise hotel. AC Hotels is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotels. And we're back with Nate Burkus. Let's talk about hotels. Since hotels are such an integral part of
the travel experience for so many people, I was thinking when I was preparing for this about, so what is the, what's the most wonderful hotel experience I ever had? And it was in a little
hotel in Stockholm, which is in an old mansion. And I've forgotten what the mansion looks like,
and I've forgotten what the, my room looked like. I know that it was nice and comfortable.
The genius thing was there was a huge old oak table immediately adjacent to an open kitchen.
And when you wanted to eat, you went down and you sat at the table and the cook came over to you and
said, what do you want? And everybody who's staying at the table, it was a small hotel,
everyone who just came and sat at the table. It was that thing. Their intention was that they
were recreating a Swedish family home, which you were a visitor. And that's not what I want from
every hotel, but no, they executed that intention beautifully. That's what I cared about. I think,
SPEAKER_02:
listen, I think that every, every hotel wants to be welcoming. They want to be curated. They want
to be intentional in their design decisions. And most definitely design does translate and communicate sort of what are you meant to feel chic and urban and free? Are you meant to
feel relaxed and calm and sunburned? Of course the furniture and the textiles and even the distribution of the rooms lends itself to certain activities and certain feelings. So I have these clients in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They're incredibly wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: I was wondering what was going to come out. No, no, they're brilliant. They're brilliant. You said you want to be there too. The pause after incredibly was. That was the genius. They are wonderful. And they are, they travel probably 300 days a year.
SPEAKER_02:
And the goal was to create a home that they liked more than anywhere they've ever stayed.
They can stay anywhere in the world and they can stay in a five-star
rent a house, rent a Villa. They can literally go anywhere they want to go. But my assignment was to make home feel better than that. So I it's me against like man against the world, man. You know, did this make you nervous? No, I was so excited about this challenge
SPEAKER_01:
SPEAKER_02: because what it did was it allowed me to really figure out who they were as a family. What really mattered to them, what ceremonies they do in their home, how they spend time together. And it offered me an opportunity to build that tile by tile, pillow by pillow, book by book, and create a space that dreamt a bigger dream for them as a family than they had even dreamt for themselves. How did you figure that out about it?
SPEAKER_02: We had the architectural framework there. We knew it was a house. We knew it had these many bedrooms and these many bathrooms and whatever. But we started with a lot of imagery. And I just watched their eyes as they commented. And I would ask them, why are you smiling when you're talking about that fireplace? You've never picked a fireplace in your entire life, but what is it that you like about that? And they were able to communicate, well, it feels so rustic and it feels so interesting and it feels like this house in Italy that we stayed in years ago. And I don't know. And we really like the idea of not using a lot of marble in the bathrooms. It feels too pretentious to us. And I said, well, what if we just use the marble on the trim and the floor is
wood and the marble on the countertops and the trim, but we'll just go around the baseboards and the doors. There'll be no slabs in the shower. And so it just gradually became this dialogue that went back and forth. And the goal is not just to assemble something that's beautiful
and meaningful, but to delight the people who have spent this time and money hiring you to do
something. And I have to say, I get a text from them weekly. They moved in over a year ago. And
SPEAKER_02: then they just, we just love it here. Like we just, you know. The greatest thing would be if
SPEAKER_01: they stopped traveling. Right. How much do you travel? I travel a lot. How much for fun and how
SPEAKER_01: much work or is there no distinction in the sense that you're always collecting? Yeah. I mean, there
SPEAKER_02: is a distinction. I mean, obviously I'm going to a beach trip with my kids, you know, that, that I know what I'm doing there. But all the work trips, I mean, I spent 25 years doing makeovers in all these towns across the country. Sometimes staying there for up to two weeks, sometimes being there for 48 hours. I always make it fun. I want to go to the local antiques malls. I want to find out
who has the best hamburger. I want the vintage fashion, the, the, the coolest monument, the private museum house. Like I, I can't sit still. The funny story about the first time I was ever in Madrid with Jeremiah, my husband, we had canvassed all these museums and we had had this beautiful lunch and then we met friends and then we went to another district and we were shopping and we came home and our feet were bleeding. So we're like, you know, wearing the
wrong shoes, of course, you know, even though we're well-traveled, we wanted to look cute. You want to look cute when you're in Madrid. So we got back to the hotel and, and he like had his feet in the
bathtub and just sitting there like sort of softly moaning. And I was on the bed with one of the magazines that was in the hotel. And as I was reading this men's fashion story, I was looking intently at all these decorative boxes and objects and frames and like leather from the 50s and like all this like really cool stuff. And then I went to the back of the magazine and found the credit and it said the name of this store. And I called downstairs to the concierge and he said, it's closing, but it's actually owned by my neighbor. If you want me to call him, he'll stay open for you. And I said, yes, yes, please call him. I want to see this store. And Jer finally comes around the corner with his bloody feet. And I go, you got to put your shoes back on. You're exhausting. I'm so
SPEAKER_01:
exhausting. Describe to me when you encounter spaces for the first time, what's your process
of judgment? Do you, do you always have a kind of reaction to it? Are you, do you find yourself
frequently appalled, outraged? No, I'm never, I'm never outraged. You know, cause you know,
you know, I asked this question because my version of what you do is stories. And when a story is badly told, I am furious. I just parenthetically wasted a good three weeks
SPEAKER_01:
of my life and I have no free time to smudge them watching Ozark. And after a season and a half,
I'm like, this is absolutely indescribably appalling. What, how did they do this? I want
to go after the showrunner and just say, you destroyed three weeks of my life. Any idea how
precious that is to me? But you don't have this. So you don't have the rage. You don't have the
SPEAKER_01: rage. No, I mean, I don't. We're both Virgos. I know. I mean, I have rage about other things.
SPEAKER_02: I have rage about dirty laundry, but I don't have rage about that. But I, I know. I mean, the answer to your question though, is when I walk in, first of all, I hate that show too. It's so badly fun. Oh my God. It's miserable. Like catch them or don't catch them already. Like it's like the same thing. It's the same scene. Every episode. Leave Ozark. If it's so
SPEAKER_01:
SPEAKER_01:
much trouble being in the Ozarks, leave the Ozarks. Yeah, exactly. Talking about travel. Don't start another casino. And then like in, like in like at the end of episode one, you know, Laura Linney, Wendy says, oh yeah, we have a spot in Australia all picked out.
SPEAKER_01: Go there. I know. Save yourselves. Save yourself. When I walk into a space, honestly,
SPEAKER_02: it's a, it's almost like AI. Like my eyes open and I look in a space and I can immediately see what I would change. And there's not one right way to do anything obviously in life. And there's
certainly not one right way to assemble a room or renovate a space. Marry another designer for
SPEAKER_02: 10 years if you don't believe me. But honestly, like the minute I walk in, and this is, I think,
one of the reasons why I've had so much fun with real estate over the years. It's like, I can just like, I walk in and it just like, a film goes over me and I can see like, raise that, take out that beam, bring the cabinets to the ceiling, do a floor here, change the floor there, move this
doorway over three feet. And by the time, I mean, most of our renovations actually, and this is true, most of our renovations, and we've renovated everywhere we've ever lived. We've never just walked in and been like, this is great. My little plant here. It's going to be perfect. But every single renovation started with going home and writing out initial ideas. And short, and those initial ideas were 85% of the final product. The instant knee-jerk reaction of how the room should flow, how the space should be laid out, not for furniture floor plans, because you know, we're two
SPEAKER_02: designers, like we move stuff around all the time. But in terms of the actual bones of a place,
it's like a film just comes down and on the film, I can see it. The thing that I'm reminded of,
SPEAKER_01: it's like a point guard describing what he or she sees on a basketball court. Yep. And that is a reference that is so hard for me to follow, but you are 100%. I'm sure you're
SPEAKER_02: right. I love a sports analogy Malcolm. Bring him at me. It's like the 40 yard line.
SPEAKER_01: But let me try again. No, no, there is a kind of, no, but what's funny about listening to you
say that, which makes perfect sense to me because that is your gift, right? That's the essence of what you do is being able to see a different, a different, a more interesting version of what
SPEAKER_01: you're presented with. And a version that's easier and better to live in. It may not be better than
SPEAKER_02:
the original, of course, but like it's going to be better for whoever lives there. But Nate,
SPEAKER_01: how does this, I want to go back to this question of why you don't feel rage.
So if you go in and you can't change it, how do you cope? You come to my house for dinner
and you walk in and you do that thing. And you're like, Oh God, that was got like 50 things wrong.
And you're like, well, you're not going to change it. And he's not a client. I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to be here. So what do you do? You sit uncomfortably through dinner, just thinking,
why is that there? No, what are you thinking? You know what, honestly, it, first of all,
SPEAKER_02: a little side note about me, I appreciate a home cooked meal more than I care about what the dining room looks like. Cause my mother made nothing growing up. So I would, I mean, that sounds delicious. I don't even care. I love how large your mother has loomed.
SPEAKER_01:
I know she has really loomed. What's your mother's name? Nancy. Shout out to Nancy. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02: there you go. But yeah, she has been looming large in the law. You know why that is? Because I,
SPEAKER_01: my favorite thing is talking about people's parents. You do? I didn't know that I could talk about people's parents. If you had told me I could do this, I would have made this entire show about your mom. She would love that. Let's just talk about your mom. That's amazing. People
SPEAKER_00:
SPEAKER_01: think moms get like too much airtime. Wrong. Yeah. Way too little airtime. It's all about mom.
SPEAKER_01: My mom is aware of that. My mom actually is not. She's one of her charms. That is charming. I can't
SPEAKER_02: imagine. That's like a point guard too. My mother, if you, if you talk on the phone with her too
SPEAKER_01: long, she will, she'll remind you of other things to do. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's just, I can't even
SPEAKER_02: imagine. Where were we? You're upset that I think you're upset that I'm not rageful when I come for a meatloaf at someone's house. No, I'm trying to, I'm here. No, we'll get, we'll get, we're getting
SPEAKER_01:
back to the series. Okay. And that is, I'm trying to understand how you manage your, you have a
SPEAKER_01: powerful aesthetic sense, right? Which dominates your life. Yeah. It's why you're who you are, why you're good at what you do. But I can answer that. I can, I know where you're going. I wonder how you manage it. There's two things. Yeah. One, there's a time and a place for everything. And I
SPEAKER_02: believe that. And so if I'm looking at a property because I'm going to live there personally, then I can't turn off that AI kind of, you know, thing. If I'm looking at a property that somebody is paying me to change on their behalf, then I can't turn anything off. But if I'm going to dinner at
SPEAKER_02: someone's house or I'm sitting on my sister's floor playing with my nephew, I don't care.
Yeah. I just don't, I mean, I couldn't care less. I'm like, where's, where are we bringing lunch in from? You know, do you like my haircut? There's so many other things that are, you know, did you read
this book? Did you hear what happened to so-and-so? Like what really makes me ragey?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Actually, good. I'm glad we're finally getting ready.
SPEAKER_01: You ready? Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Mr. Malcolm Gladwell. Now, mom, you know why?
SPEAKER_02:
What makes me ragey is people who are really confident in their bad taste.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. It makes me insane. And it usually is tied to a lot, like a great deal of money,
SPEAKER_02: like a huge fortune wasted. And I cannot stand the shape of their heads when they tell you how special and fabulous, because they use that word a lot. That's a keyword. If you're going to
SPEAKER_02: have really terrible taste and be confident about it, you need to say everything is fabulous over and over. So you yourself apparently believe it, but that makes me insane. Do you want to name names
SPEAKER_01: at all? Sure. I think that there's, the reason why it's not extremely complicated to have a career in
SPEAKER_02:
design at any level is because there's so much insecurity around design. And I've tried to make
that okay over the years to not be so heavy handed. I have my own convictions. I know what I think is beautiful. When you're on makeovers for 15 years on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 200 countries and everybody's looking to you, the question was always like, what's the trend? What's the trend coming up? And you could hear the representative from the wool bureau and the background and the Pantone color of, and not that I would decide that, but they were just like, is he going to agree? Is he going to whatever? And I've always felt like all these waves, these trends are designed to make people feel bad about what they didn't buy at the last trend. And so my whole philosophy has always been like, if you actually spend the time to get to know yourself well enough to know what really, what you really do enjoy, what really makes your heart sing when you look around a space, then you can shut out all that noise and build something that matters. Because the interiors that I've been inspired by over the years, the ones that really mattered to me are the ones where people just like kind of busted a move. You know, it was France in the 1950s and this Mexican count decided that he was going to make all these follies in his garden and design the house. It's called Chateau de Grusset for anyone who wants to look it up, but like it's a real place. And he put a royal blue rug down in the dining room with Kelly green chairs because no one was doing that. And that's what he wanted to live in. And maybe it was because he was half from Mexico. Maybe it wasn't, who knows, but it was revolutionary. And, you know,
had he been worried about what color the sweaters on the mannequins in Banana Republic on Fifth Avenue were going to be like, it was, you know, it was inconceivable. So am I like a real renegade?
SPEAKER_02: Am I breaking all these rules? Am I Zaha Hadid making buildings that look like they balance on the bottom of a pin? And, you know, no, I'm not. My goal is to make like really livable spaces that
if they're designed right now, 25 years from now, they still look great. And more importantly, they still feel great. So that's my niche. That's what matters. And I think that's the, like, what's what, what all this loathing people with lots of money and bad tastes and being vehemently
SPEAKER_02: anti-trend, you know, you end up with, with some nice tile. Yeah. Okay. Last question. Yeah. Not
SPEAKER_01: meant to be a downer question, but imagine that you were sad. You were melancholy over some
SPEAKER_01: something. And I came to you Nate and I said, I will fly you tonight to the one place in the world
that will cure you of your melancholy. Where do I take you? Home. Oh, that's lovely. Thank you so much, Nate.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to this special live episode of Revisionist History brought to you by AC Hotels. It was produced by Tali Emlin with Nina Lawrence and Ben Nadaf-Haffrey. Editing by Sarah Nix, mastering by Jake Gorski. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Kira Posey, Joshua Crowley, Brianne Moreno, Raya Anthony, Benjamin Jester, and the whole production crew
at iHeartMedia. Not to mention Nate Burkus' shop. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.
Today's episode of Revisionist History was recorded live with AC Hotels by Marriott. AC
Hotels is a European inspired hotel brand where every detail has been refined, crafted, and considered to ensure a seamless stay. Enjoy breakfast that features hand-shaped prosciutto, freshly baked croissants, and made to order hot items. Unwind in the AC lounge with their custom gin tonic served in a scientifically engineered glass. Every AC Hotels location has a clean and modern design, making it an ideal, relaxing, and stylish backdrop for any trip. Thanks to AC Hotel New York Times Square for hosting us for this live show. Visit ac-hotels.com and learn more and to elevate your next stay. AC Hotels is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotels.
