Interiors and Home

I’ve recently been pitched more interiors and design stories by PRs, which is great. As I said a few weeks ago, homes are really a growing area of interest for the publications I work for. I like writing home stories because of the combination of personal interest and design.

But there aren’t that many stories that I pass on to my editors. If I don’t, it’s because they haven’t met certain criteria.

Firstly, I need to know who the owner is. Unlike specialist interiors magazines, my titles wouldn’t do a home story where the owner needs to be anonymous.

Secondly, the owner needs to be A Person of Interest. For a fashion title like Vogue, that generally means designers, artists and other people in the arts and fashion industry. And they need to be known or interesting to a British audience ie. fashion designers whose clothes they can buy, artists who have good currency at the moment, a model who’s had or having an interesting life.

Three, and most obviously they need to have a fascinating home. For Vogue I’ve realised that means colourful. Not only because that reflects current trends in home decoration, but also because it’s feel good and Vogue is a very positive and feel-good title under Edward Enninful’s editorship. (Those covers by the way… so consistently cracking).

For How To Spend It, I would probably only pitch something on a grand scale architecturally but with plenty of personal detail and style. The owner should be of international interest.

And for The Observer Magazine, a much smaller and approachable scale of house, but again, colour is going to look good on those pages. Well, colour looks good everywhere right now.