328: His furniture is King

On the scene of the tag sale that "might not last 'til Sunday."

I arrived to the Chelsea studio space where interior stylist Colin King was hosting his tag sale around 11a, worried that I might have made a grave mistake dawdling past the 9a Friends & Family hour. There was a modest line; the folks at the front said they’d been waiting 20 minutes (in “feels like 20º” weather), and the door guy said it was the shortest it’s been—when doors opened at 10a, the queue had brushed up against the decorated church at the end of the block.

Some of the grabbiest steals—a patinated wooden bench for $295, a wall-mounted iron candle holder for $225—bore red-inked SOLD stickers, but the articles best representing Colin’s erudite eye remain for the taking. A Gerrit Rietveld for Cassina armchair upholstered in cream linen, styled beside a tonal Artemide Tizio lamp and red rock side table as it had been in Colin’s book “Arranging Things” (pictured below), drummed up a pretty urgent desire within.

At the sale, Colin said that things were moving—fast—but that with higher-investment items like furniture (the Cassina was listed at $8,500), shoppers might take time to thing about their purchases and circle back later. At the rate everything was selling, he said he wasn’t sure if there would be enough to last till the end of the sale, which runs through Sunday ‘til 6p.

Yesterday, I got Colin on the phone to chat with him about the sale, how he sources, and how, when the time comes, he’s able to let things go. Read his interview below, and find details for shopping the sale at the end of the page.

I just did a sale two weeks ago at my house, which I think was a crazy decision in retrospect. Like, okay, everyone's in my home looking through my stuff? I hope it's good enough for you. I hope you're happy with the shopping experience that I've created. I was so worried there wasn't enough.

Totally. It’s interesting because I feel like I'm relatively hidden behind all the work that I put out there. It feels like being exposed in a whole other way.

I'm curious about what your shopping looks like when it comes to the home. Where are you finding stuff? How do you approach things?

For me, it's both a treasure hunt and also a creative outlet. I’m drawn to items and objects that have a story or a unique strength in their presence. I have a lot of dealers here in the city that I constantly go to, like Dobrinka Salzman. De Vera, I love their objects. Roman and Williams Guild downtown. It's all crossover between client and resource. I love scouring auctions as well; I'm a big live auctioneer person. Truthfully, Instagram is so great for discovering one-of-a-kind pieces.

I add to my house a lot, but I'm totally about rearranging things and giving it a new life without even having to acquire more objects. So whether I take something from my bedroom and bring it into the living room, or I decide to just strip everything off a table and put one singular thing in the middle of it, or I do a cluster of objects, there's so many ways to reinvent your home.

Do you have any reliable sources for things that aren't, let's say, reinventing your space altogether? Things like a shower curtain or forks and knives, things that can be special but won't necessarily make or break the space.

There's a great resource called Freeforms. Patricia and her husband used to have a physical shop, but they went online, and they're amazing. They have everything. You get to shop by material—glass, metal, ceramic.

I'm such a devout Etsy user as well. You can find really interesting vendors. It’s fun—all these sites like Pinterest and Etsy and 1stDibs, they're getting smarter and smarter with their technology and how their algorithm works. They start showing you things, and you're like, Wow, this is incredible.

When I'm browsing on Pinterest for inspiration, I'm like, Is it supposed to be this easy? Why is it getting everything so right?

Honestly, it’s great.

When you are sourcing for clients versus sourcing for yourself, is there a differentiation? Are you picking up things that you resonate with personally along the way, or do you have to shift into a different mindset?

It's definitely a blurred line. For me, the process of collecting is often the same as creating a mood for clients. So when I purchase something, I might not know at first where it's going to live in my home or in the project, but over time, it always makes its way into one of those worlds. I just try to buy things that I'm really drawn to. Sometimes I'll buy for a specific client, and then I'll have it delivered to my space, and it triggers a new idea. Or I’ll actually buy it back from them; those things definitely happen.

You know, what I don't disclose is that I work on such a wide spectrum. So there are a lot of clients I'm sourcing for that I would never personally own, but I can embody what they're going for and bring my sensibility to it. It’s like this cobalt blue Venetian glass that I would never personally own, but I can still bring myself to it and bring it into a client's home, and it still feels like this beautiful marriage between myself and my client.

What are the last three things that you bought?

I took my friend and collaborator Bilal Taright. We went to De Vera, which is on 28th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenue. It’s my favorite shop in New York City. We kind of did a gift exchange in the moment, like okay, you pick something, I'm gonna pick something, and then we're gonna buy it for each other. I bought this beautiful hand-blown drinking glass that had these big blue polka dots on it. I really likebid it. I'm known to use a glass as a vessel as well. So I could imagine putting a small arrangement in there too. Yesterday, actually, I just bought a beautiful Ingo Maurer pendant for a client.

It's funny that I bring up cobalt blue Venetian glass. I'm helping a client with a very specific project, and we're scouring the world for cobalt blue Venetian glass. And so there was a Murano auction yesterday that I found myself on.

You’ve never had a tag sale before. What is the process of letting go of things for you?

Being a stylist, I feel like one of my jobs is to capture the essence of an object not just for the moment, but for its potential. I could take something and pair it well with another object that gives it a whole new life, or elevates it, or makes it more sophisticated. When I work with these pieces, it's almost like they're memorialized in the images and stories that I create around them.

I think that's why I can let them go, because in a way, they've had their time to shine. They've been photographed, styled and fit into their narrative. I've captured their spirit; I can look back. It allows me to part with them without too much regret. It’s not really about owning an object, and that's why I'm excited to have this sale. These things have been hidden behind my cabinets or been in storage, and they deserve love and life.

I was going to ask, how many storage units are you sitting on right now?

Luckily, only one. But it was so over-stuffed that it just became this stockpile, where there was no way I was getting anything from it. This tag sale was definitely born out of a need rather than a want.

Can you tell me about a couple of pieces that you’re excited about?

Right now, I'm sitting at a travertine table that I've had since a few apartments ago; it was on the cover of my book. It's such a staple piece in my life, and it became the place where I did all my still lifes during the quarantine. I'm ready to move on from it. I'm in my new apartment, and it's a different vibe, so this table will be there. It's solid travertine marble. First it was my dining table, then it was a side table in my loft. Now it's acting as a desk for myself and my senior designer, Ella.

These beautiful finished chairs that everyone asks about—they have these feathered backs—those going to be there. So many, fun oddities: a lot of lamps that I've collected over the years, ceramics that I’ve filled and added lamp shades to. There’s a Noguchi pendant; I feel like that’s super covetable, but my ceilings are too low here. I'm gonna let go of all the things that I'm really known for, too, as far as large vessels and pots, Wabi-sabi poetic Japanese healing moments, a lot of slip-covered furniture. All sorts of rocks.

We love a good rock.

There's a sofa and coffee table I designed; there's a huge dining table that I designed. There will be a lot of custom pieces that were specifically made for White Street, my old loft. They are definitely loft-scale pieces, which will be great for somebody.

It’s so big that you're getting rid of that table, but it’s very exciting for it to find a new home.

I feel like the second I got this, people started asking where it was from, if they could make one, if they could buy it. So, you know, eight years later!

Have you ever shared where it's from?

It's one of those things that I actually found in the Pasadena Antique Mall. It was like, in the corner, under a bunch of stuff. I don't think people thought to ask if it was for sale, because it was being used as a display table. Yeah, it was a good, good find.

Rearranging Things, a Tag Sale

Friday, February 21st to Sunday, February 23rd

10:00 am - 6:00 pm

500 W 22nd Street
New York, NY

This event is open to the public and does not require RSVP, tell your friends 🥀

---

Magasin may earn some money if you make a purchase through one of the links above.

Follow us on Instagram at @magasin.ltd.