Five Fits With: Interior Stylist and Artistic Director Colin King
In expanding the vocabulary of this series, I’m happy to bring you someone with great style once again hailing from the land of interiors. This week’s subject is Colin King, the interior stylist and artistic director whose work you’ve probably seen somewhere on Instagram, or in the world’s biggest publications like Architectural Digest or The New York Times. King first made his way to New York via his home state of Ohio to pursue a career in dance. He got his BFA from Marymount on the Upper East Side and soon after auditioned for Broadway and other companies before acquiring an agent and moving to L.A. to do commercial dance.
“Making a living as a dancer wasn't all it was cut out to be,” says King. “When I looked to my left and right and people wanted it more than me, I was like, ‘You know what? I'm going to move on.’” His agent pushed him to pursue fitness, which led him to work for the famed Tracy Anderson for four years in his twenties. “All of a sudden, I was in the homes of the likes of Victoria Beckham and Gwyneth Paltrow,” he recalls. “Coming from an 1830s farmhouse, I was never exposed to design like that. It just started to light a fire.”
Colin and I met at his beautiful TriBeCa apartment to discuss how his interest in interior styling blossomed, leaning in to aversions and tension, finding an interest in clothing through being an identical twin, and plenty more.
Fit One
Vintage hat and T-shirt, sweater by Stoffa, sweats by Abercrombie & Fitch, socks by Ralph Lauren, and shoes by Converse.
What most excites you about interior styling?
The dialogue and conversations that can be created between objects within space. There's nothing that excites me more than liking something when I originally had an adverse reaction to it. That to me is interior styling; walking into a space, working with what you have, and making the room sing in a way that maybe it didn't before.
Are there any myths about designing and furnishing one's home that you'd like to dispel for Esquire's readers?
I think the biggest myth is that you have to have everything all at once. You have to furnish your home immediately. That's actually when people make a lot of compromises and mistakes, when they’re trying to immediately get everything that they need all at one time. It's a hard thing to do. Not everyone has that collector mentality, but it's the same with clothing and fashion. If you can just wait on the staple pieces or have one piece tailored to you, those pieces will last forever. You don't need a lot. You just need fewer, better things, you know?
Fit Two
Vintage shirt by Lee, jacket by Saint Laurent, jeans by Frame, belt by J.Crew, and shoes by Berluti.
Any tips for decorating one's apartment or home on a budget?
I always say focus on the framework—walls, floors, the textures, the box itself. Because I knew even moving into this space, if I could get killer color with plaster walls, nail the floors, I could put a folding chair in here and it would look amazing. Really focusing on the space itself, and the light, the textures—anything will look good. Going back to the last question, just start slow. We don't need everything at once. I think it's better to have temporary things, even if you have to borrow furniture from a friend or family member to live with it, and then wait till you actually have what you need.
How did you first become interested in clothing?
From a very young age. I'm an identical twin, and my parents always wanted to dress us the same. I didn't want to be dressed the same as anybody. So, it first looked like changing color. For example, he would always be in red. I would always be in blue or purple. Then I really tried to find my own point of view. Really early on, I remember there was a Simba belt that changed my life. I wore it with every outfit. Also, going to a private Catholic school and having a uniform, I was always trying to find the little areas where you could find your own style, whether it was a shoe or the cut of a short, because we were allowed to wear shorts in the spring and the fall. My twin, Caleb, and I, we steal each other's clothes. These are his sweats. He’s worked at Abercrombie for 14 years now, and I'm always like, "That's Abercrombie? That's so nice." As soon as he wears it in for a year or two, then I'm like, "I'll take it" It's funny because you get to see what you look like in clothes. For my heterosexual brother in Ohio, he's got pretty good style.
Fit Three
Coat and jacket by Burberry; sweater, trousers, and shoes by Stoffa.
What sorts of parallels do you see between personal style and interior styling?
It's funny because I learned through observation and through experience. Living in New York City is the biggest fashion lesson you can have. It is so inspiring. It’s the same with my wardrobe and my interiors. I love vintage, I love unique cuts, but finding real anchors to a space and to a room and things that are versatile. I like to work with neutrals, but ones that have a lot of weight and their own style. I try and look for objects and pieces in my wardrobe that have their own unique edge.
Are there any brands that you're really into at the moment?
Being a tall, slender guy, European brands usually fit me better. I love Italian brands. Stoffa is amazing. I love what the The Row is doing. I've always loved what they do, but for me it's community. That’s the thing I'm most proud of; seeing what friends are doing. My friend Elizabeth Kuzyk, who made that jacket I wore, and Daniella Kallmeyer, who makes that shirt. And my friend Raf, who does R.Swiader. A lot of my friends come here and we share sources and find inspiration. I also love throwbacks: Abercrombie—that's the Ohio in me—and stealing hats off my dad's garage wall. Finding those few pieces with a lot of patina and age is nice as well.
Fit Four
Suit by R.Swiader, shirt by Kallmeyer, watch by Hermès, and shoes by Grenson.
By the time this piece comes out, you will have been to Salone del Mobile 2024. Can you share a bit about what you’ll be doing in Milan?
Salone is this incredible international design fair, and this'll be my fourth year going. The first year I showed with a rug company called Beni Rugs. I'm their artistic director, and we debuted a new collection of mine. This time, I'm showing a wallpaper with Calico Walls Wallpaper. I did two collections called Nuance and Perception. Very similarly to what I was saying about patina, I found that whenever I did shoots, especially on set, it's hard to find any sort of set that felt real. So, I work with this company, Oliphant a lot, who does these beautiful backdrops—they do them for Annie Leibovitz. They have these techniques where they're just paint and paint and paint so it has this time built in there. Like when you go to Brooklyn or wherever in the city and it's been painted a hundred times over with inches of paint. That was the inspiration for the collection, to have that patina and age. We spent a year developing different canvases to scan, and they're all one of a kind. They're made to measure for each room with many beautiful colorways. We're showing at this place called Alcova, which is a nomadic collective that takes over these historic properties in Milan. This year, it's the Borsani Estates, which is a little bit outside of Milan. But the challenge was that we weren't able to intervene with the ceilings or the walls or the floors. So, showing wallpaper that way was a challenge—a fun challenge. That's what I love; I love parameters. They’re the best directive. We built this, what we're calling a monument, which is a Richard Serra-like structure that has one paper on the outside and another paper on the inside. I'm really excited about it.
Fit Five
Leather jacket by Kuzyk, T-shirt by Loewe, jeans by The Row, belt by Nili Lotan, and shoes by Grenson.
If you had to wear one outfit for the rest of your life, what would it consist of?
I’m a blue jean, white t-shirt, Converse kind of guy. Hanes t-shirts are the best, especially worn in. I love Frame denim. I also love a leather jacket, so [I’d wear] the one I wore with the Canadian tuxedo vibe, that YSL one probably.
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