apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Tyler Brûlé is on my list of "people I would most like to have dinner with". I think he is a genius.

yum yum

He doesn't look very happy about the new magazine.

Ty just looks upset in this photograph because I stood him up for dinner last weekend.

Is Brûlé his yummy real name, or diy?

Guido, I'm fairly certain it's a serving suggestion.

Wallpaper was fascinating for about 6 months, and then the editorial tone ("God, it's so tough being a bored, hot, international supermodel") wasn't even entertaining in an over-the-top way.

Not looking forward to Monocle.

His column in the Financial Times was gorgeous. Just like candy.

I saw Tyler at the Slipper Room in 1999. He did not look so drawn in those days. But that could be said about all of us, including the owner of the Slipper Room, Jeff Dachis. Along with Craig Kanarick (co-owner of “the Slipper”), Dachis started the company Razorfish in 1995 in Dachis' East Village apartment and built it into a $2 billion public corporation with 1,800 employees in 13 cities. Today Dachis is still active in new media circles, but his radiant glow, and indeed the luminosity that filled the Slipper Room and characterized its celebrants – Tyler, Jeff, Craig, me -- is gone.

That evening Tyler excitedly told me that he had just put to bed the January-February issue of Wallpaper. The cover featured a beautiful couple whose fierce stare and slight, knowing, upward lift of the left side of their mouth (the viewer’s right) signaled their ownership of a very special knowledge, presumably located in the pages behind them. This knowledge was subtitled “Bunker Down / What to Do In Case We Crash / Wallpaper’s designs for millennium meltdown.” The couple held a crossbow between them, and sat in front of at least a month’s supply (or weekend!) of champagne, fine foodstuffs, and sundry luxuries. It turned out that the crash came not from the calendar, but from our own hands.

Tyler ordered a pomegranate martini. Who did that in 1999!?! He did, and it took half an hour for the barman to make it. TylerÂ’s deliberate and smooth manner in making the order suggested a style sense that transcended magazine production cycles and press releases. I could imagine that TylerÂ’s bunker was even more fabulous than those featured in the Wallpaper cover story, and the only redoubt that any halfway stylist survivalist would aspire to occupy, come the Horsemen. Unsurprisingly my attempt to order the same drink with the same bartender, on a different night, got nowhere.

We all know what happened to the “dot-com bubble,” which covered roughly 1997-2001 and saw stock markets rapidly increase in value based on speculative money and business offerings that, today, in our more sober clime, seem outlandish. I lost touch with Jeff and Craig, although understand that they are doing well. Could it be that we are the first peoples to follow our hedonism with so sophisticated a regime of health and fitness that the latter technologies nearly erase the damage done? Cigarette scorched fingers and faces, dried up eyes, leaky membranes of the nose, tight skin across the temple --- all correctable and, if not internally set right, then cosmetically repaired. Jeff and Craig seem to answer my question in the affirmative.

I’m happy to see that we are not yet in our bunkers, and heartened by Tyler’s decision to launch “Monocle” in February 2007. This move suggests an undiminished verve and a resolve to explore with Falstaffian spirit the aesthetic boundaries of our manufactured and mediated existence. My understanding is that the content and editorial lines of “Monocle” are still very much under development. It will be interesting to see it take shape. Whereas the title “wallpaper” suggests a structured and preexisting environment (‘the stuff that surrounds us’) – a title wholly appropriate to its apolitical times, when we prioritized experience over knowledge -- “monocle” implies the act of sight, of visual pinpointing. I would argue that this latter mode involves objectification in the classical sense, and the necessary making of judgments. Our arms cannot always be open, it seems. Perhaps this is in line with our more sober times, and goes some way to explaining the somber thoughtfullness of the Brûlé whom we see in the photo above.

Scott,

Why do you say "was"??? You are scaring me.

Ick. I've never been a Tyler Brule fan, even less so after seeing a documentary on him on IFC about a year ago. He came off as self-involved and self-important, all the while playing the "poor me, I'm secretly insecure, damaged and am misunderstood by my father" card. In my mind, we have Tyler Brule to blame for the hateful breed of style-obsessed, bon-mot-spewing, "A"-Gay Feminazis. To me, he represents everything wrong about consumer culture; and takes the notion of "aspiration" to ridiculously perverse heights. Though I'll admit to a fascination to him as a shrewd lifestyle marketer, I can honestly say he's the last person I'd want to invite over and break bread with--not that I'd ever get the chance.

Kah...sorry. Wrong use of word tense. Meant "is". Haven't been reading the pink pages lately.

E....I think TB is prescient like Warhol or Tom Ford. Whether I like it or not, it is invigorating to see things as they are.

Thanks for the anecdote Rick! I appreciate it.

thank you for sharing rick. i saw that documentary and was facinated by tyler. now i look foward to seeing the new maqgazine.

Enrique,

I saw an interview with him, too, and was totally repulsed by his personality. His magazine was "of the moment" for less than a year. It will be interesting to see what will happen with the new one.

When he came to Australia last year to launch the new Nokia phone, I heard from those present that he gave the most pretentious speech ever. He's such a wanker that he really has no idea just how wanky he is. Just watch him rip off content from every design blog and call the magazine, Monacle.

Oh and Winkcreative - Monacle is just a platform to promote his high end clients.

He's so 1989

Fiona totally called it.

And Monocle is trying to position itself as a "trendy Economist" aimed at "wealthy opinion formers"?

It's really time to grow up and do something a little more significant than promote luxury goods.

an anaesthetist who lives in Australia
Please email me when subscription available
can't wait
Andrew

I agree that Wallpaper is stale.

I can't afford 75% of what's in there (and neither can 75% of Wallpaper's readers - but hey - that's the point isn't it?) and wouldn't buy it even if I could.

I used to like it's 'hey look at this stuff we think is cool' attitude. Now it's more like 'look at this stuff - you WILL think it's cool'. My friend's partner's store featured in this month's edition (exciting for them!) but they put the store's old address and therefore location map in. D'oh!

I'm well aware that it could indeed be me that has changed and not the magazine, but that's not the mark of a great magazine. Keeping existing readership is key!

I'll give Monocle a chance (now I have grown up a bit) because despite the downsides of Wallpaper, I am still inspired by the content and am a fan of the layout.

Oh, and Tyler can't be seen to smile, or people won't take him seriously!

>I can't afford 75% of what's in there

I can't even afford the magazine!