Top Pick in Lifestyles, December 2018
A similar approach can be found in famed stylist Wendy Goodman’s May I Come In?: Discovering the World in Other People’s Houses. Like Thompson, Goodman, driven by curiosity, makes a study of the interiors of artistic individuals. “[T]he most captivating rooms exist where decoration is a by-product of a person’s passions in life,” she writes. But Goodman’s quest is fueled by A-list access, and the spaces she explores belong to figures like Richard Avedon, Donatella and Gianni Versace and Todd Oldham. The homes on display here are sometimes quite posh and ornate, and other times more modest but rip-roaringly colorful, bursting with aesthetic whimsy. Goodman’s introductory essays are wonderful soupçons of observation; of Gloria Vanderbilt, she writes, “Nothing better illustrates her originality, or instinct for design, than the bedroom she created on East Sixty-Seventh Street, where she covered every inch of the room—walls, floor, and ceiling—with a collage of cut-up quilts.” Come, settle in for a look at the living quarters of the cultural elite.
This article was originally published in the December 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
