Just... wow. This week has brought so much press and love my way, and my book Your Home, Your Style isn't even in stores yet.
It landed in the New York Times, in a roundup of design titles by Jeremy Allen:
"'Your Home, Your Style: How to Find Your Look & Create Rooms You Love' offers to help you discover your 'design disposition'... The book’s second half suggests ways to transform your home accordingly. It’s an easily digestible guide that may turn the pain points of renovation into creative epiphanies."
Today it's in a piece by Marni Katz in the Boston Globe:
"Donna Garlough wants you to find the look you love...[H]er new book, 'Your Home Your Style: How to Find Your Look & Create Rooms You Love'... lays out all you need to transform your space into a place that reflects your personal style, even if you didn’t know you had any."
And a piece I penned for MindBodyGreen not only ran, but was one of their most-read pieces that day. Here's a snippet:
"It occurred to me one day, as I pinned yet another DIY art project that I’d never actually complete, that this profusion of inspiration wasn’t getting me any closer to my dream home... The problem? Most of what was out there was one-size-fits-all: Use this type of bed in this type of space. Follow this formula for combining colors. Describe your look as X, Y, or Z.
Even how-to articles with options for high budgets versus low ones seemed to be asking the wrong question. I thought what if instead of asking what do you like, we asked what are you like?"
More than anything, what this tells me is that folks are legitimately interested in creating spaces that aren't just beautiful, but that feel like them. A roundup of spring design books, including Your Home, Your Style, that ran in Publisher’s Weekly this month suggests this is part of a much larger shift:
“Authenticity. This of-the-moment buzzword recurs throughout 2018 home and garden titles and in publishers’ descriptions of what their readers are seeking. How can readers achieve authenticity at home? By eschewing prescriptive how-to sand figuring out who they are, what they love, and how it translates into their style—and lifestyle.”
I’m thinking of diving into this topic a bit at upcoming book signings and discussions, but I’m curious: Does it seem to you like this shift is occurring? Are there other topics about home, and our relationship to it, that you’d rather have a conversation about instead? I’d love to hear your ideas, either in the comments section below or over on Instagram. Tell me what you think!