Something Rich and Strange

So I get back from Spain to a boatload of catalogues and magazines and find that the remainder of my subscription to the much-adored late, great design magazine Domino has been replaced with – Architectural Digest?!? (Click here for the back story.) Really, Conde Nast? This seems like an odd choice,

kind of like replacing a Maxim subscription with Vogue; both offer ample photos of nubile young women, but with a very different editorial focus.

But I guess I should cut Conde Nast some slack. AD has been around since 1920, so the publishers must have some understanding of what its demographic is. And maybe AD will cull some new followers from the ranks of Domino’s devotees. But positioning of both publications aside, Domino and AD were at two opposite poles when it came to one thing: accessibility. Not in grasping arcane design concepts, but, to paraphrase DeToqueville, on what makes America great, the ability to acquire the goods and services to live the life we want.

Yes, both publications would highlight celebrity digs. But the difference was that the fabulous chest you saw depicted in a photo spread of so-and-sos' living room in AD would most likely be accessible only to “the trade,” in essence requiring an interior design intermediary to score it for you. That is, if you could afford its nearly $13,000 price tag and said designer’s fee.

In contrast, Domino might feature certain items that were either one-of-a-kind or perhaps prohibitively expensive (for most of us) and would suggest affordable alternatives and where they could be had. The rooms depicted in Domino were always accompanied by detailed information about where the items populating them, down to the paint color on the walls, could be purchased. Thus, while few of us are Masters of the Universe looking for creative ways to spend that multi-million dollar bonus, creating the kind of chichi abode once only available to the super rich, albeit on a smaller scale, was within reach to readers of Domino.

Ironically, a magazine like Domino, according to the publisher could not be sustained in these difficult economic times. But in flipping through AD and looking at a 32-acre spread with a “compound” of 12,000 square feet of buildings, I wonder how it will survive as disconnected as it is from most of America. Being the chronicler of the building and decoration of homes that cost 10s of millions of dollars seems editorially tone deaf to what most of us are experiencing. But we’ll see.