THE PIN–UP QUOTE: WENDY GOODMAN
Decorating doesn’t interest me in and of itself. I’m interested in houses that are incredibly personal and tell the story of that person. I was in fashion before I did this, and my approach to being a fashion editor was like a producer or director of a play. I thought, “What interests me is why people present themselves the way they do at any given moment,” because the clothing really does matter, because it’s their choice of presenting a character. To me, it’s all the same thing, from fashion to interiors — it’s telling the same story, of a person’s life, where they’ve been, where they are now, where they hope to be. I realized early that the hardest thing is to make rooms emotional and to make them speak about the people who live there. I want to get in somehow, to look in from behind the flowers…you have to keep the readers stimulated and steer clear of a deadening formula, to keep mixing it up and yet hold the point of view. When I see a big flat screen opposite a big sofa and above a fireplace it’s over. I say, “Bye!” It’s like a dead zone to me. I go into fancy houses and there are flat screens in every room, and I just go “Pooh!” It’s like automatic living. When you have people over, or when you come home, don’t you want to talk and interact?
Taken from an interview with Pierre Alexandre de Looz in PIN–UP 19, Fall Winter 2015/16.
Portrait by Bruno Staub.