Revisionist History LIVE with Nate Berkus

Season 3, The Apartheid Killer.

Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

It's a conversation I recently had with Nate Berkus.

If that name rings a bell, he's a famous interior designer.

You may know him from his appearances over the years on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

You may have read one of his books.

You may even have some of his products in your home.

Anyway, this all came about because AC Hotels wanted to host an event about design and creativity

at their Times Square location in New York City.

And we decided to invite Nate to come, which turned out, as you will hear, to be an inspired choice.

I had so much fun doing this.

We talked about our moms, about Paris, about the TV shows that fill us with rage,

and a million other things, but mostly about design and creativity.

Nate is as charming and funny as he is smart.

Anyway, here it is.

This all took place in the rooftop bar of the AC Hotel in New York,

with all kinds of fabulous cocktails and appetizers being passed around.

Just a heads up, you may hear some city noises in the background.

I hope you enjoyed this live episode as much as I did.

I wanted to say before I started, I think we should get this little order, bit of business, out of the way.

I've scored enormous points with my significant other this evening by interviewing you.

Kate, normally, if I'm interviewing, hypothetically, the CEO of whatever, Microsoft,

she would say, oh, interesting, and then go back to her phone.

When word leaked that I was interviewing Nate Berkus, it was like, Nate Berkus?

It was like, you can't imagine the kind of celebrity power you have in my home.

You are welcome.

So, no, it's huge.

It's huge for all of us in the Gladwell household.

her response was, why?

We're going to be talking about travel and design and your career and all kinds of interesting things.

Before we get to your career, though, you and I both have the travel bug.

Because I have a theory that the travel bug is innate.

It's not acquired.

You either have it or you don't.

So we're talking, we're trafficking.

And I have a little story about myself, which I think proves this is true.

But before I tell that story, I wanted you to tell me, when did you realize,

when is the first evidence the world has that Nate has the travel bug?

I think, yeah, I think it was the first time I was somewhere without a chaperone.

Like a proper chaperone.

I did a semester abroad in Europe and moved to Paris and sort of lived in this tiny little box at the top of a beautiful building with a shared bathroom.

It was amazing.

I sold all my clothes instead of spending money.

I was wearing Ralph Lauren and that's not what was cool.

No, no, no.

So yeah, I had to try to sell that.

Get some money for a leather jacket.

But I found myself in Paris alone.

And I remember walking the streets and feeling really good.

Feeling like really solid and not being afraid and not being intimidated and being fascinated by modern life in an ancient place.

And I think that that was the first moment for me.

And when I travel, I'm not really reaching for the sort of where the guides say you should go.

For me, it's what is most indicative of that place as seen through objects.

So I'm in the markets where people buy their pots and pans and the fabric they make the potato sacks out of.

And those are the kinds of things that I'm always searching for.

But that trip to Paris, that first move really to Paris, was when I knew I would never really stay in one place for a long time.

And there's a picture of us about to get on the train to go to the...

We took a boat, took the Empress of England.

We're about to get on the train to go to the boat.

And so there's a family shot.

My oldest brother is weeping.

He's leaving the only country he's ever known, all of his friends.

My middle brother is clinging to my mother anxiously.

You know, it's a long...

It's 10 days through uncharted stormy seas.

I look like someone who's just given me a million dollars.

I'm five years old, and this is the single greatest moment of my life.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

We're going to some unknown place on a boat for 10 days?

This is amazing.

That was when...

I look at that photo.

I'm like, oh, yeah, that's exactly...

That's you.

Nothing has changed.

So I want to go back to you in Paris.

You're how old?

In other words, were you doing the same things in a new city that you do today

only without realizing why?

Were the habits there?

I still love doing all the things that I did when I was that age in that city,

no matter where I am.

Allowing myself to get lost.

Not relying on an Uber or a driver or whatever it is,

but really digging in and seeing the space and seeing the place.

Trying to figure out how to ask the right people where the best Chinese food is

or the best croissant or the best coffee.

I have this aversion to being told what to do when I'm...

I have this aversion to being told what to do.

How's that?

Let me just leave it at that.

But especially when I'm traveling because I want to figure it out for myself.

And if a friend says, you have to eat here, you have to see this,

or you have to go to this museum or see this historic home,

I'll do it in two seconds.

But I also like to be the guy that has days doing nothing

and just kind of soaking in what the culture might bring.

which is nearly impossible today.

But all of us over the age of 40 remember a time when that was kind of not the norm.

It was really easy to get lost and thrilling in this way.

I remember when I, as a 15-year-old, me and my brother went to London

and we spent two weeks with my uncle and aunt.

They lived just on the furthest reaches of West London.

I would get on the Parsons Green tube and randomly get off at a stop and walk around.

I knew nothing about London.

I had never read a guidebook.

What I knew about London I knew from Dickens.

I totally get that.

and you never know what you're going to stumble upon.

The coolest place, the best restaurant.

Malcolm McLaren, the founder of the Sex Pistols,

had a clothing store with, was it Vivienne Westwood?

Yeah.

On something road in Chelsea.

I was like, oh, this looks interesting.

But you found it.

And it felt differently because you found it.

It's like, you know, and I, yeah, I mean, to allow yourself to get lost,

it wasn't really that scary.

Now, I mean, as a dad, I think it's super scary.

I would kill my kids.

They're like, what are you talking about?

There's a low jack in your shoe, and we have an apple tag in your forehead,

and you know, but I can still see you.

But I think, you know, it was just, I don't know.

There was just something about being in a foreign capital,

in a new culture, in a place that was so old and so beautiful,

and the architecture was so special to my eye at that age

that I wanted to be lost.

I wanted to be lost every day.

does it also describe your professional practice as an interior designer?

I think it describes it in that I'm really afraid of people

who present themselves as like they've mastered a craft.

Like, I just, it's the weirdest sort of place.

I've been doing this for almost 30 years now,

assembling spaces hopefully that have meaning for the people that live there,

but I am trying really hard to do that, but it's all evolving constantly.

And, you know, in any creative endeavor,

if you've made decisions about how things need to be or should be,

you're missing every other sort of bright, shiny thing

you can reach down and pick up and incorporate.

And so I think after this long in design, I'm adept at scale.

I'm adept at certain things that I've practiced as sort of refined a skill set

that's a practical skill set.

But the creative, the magical, the imaginative, yeah, I'm always lost.

I love it.

So walk me through, you're in Paris at 17.

Take me from there to how you became a designer.

I've sold all of my Ralph Lauren clothes to the lovely kids in the neighborhood.

And fries.

We would probably talk about music.

I was listening to, like, the Smiths and, you know.

Of course you were.

Walkman.

And I liked clothes.

And I liked history.

I was interested in history even at that age.

I don't think we would have talked about clothes if you saw the clothes I was wearing when I was 17.

You may have been a little further ahead of me.

But you grew up in Chicago.

And I split my time between Southern California and Minneapolis.

My parents divorced when I was two.

And they both remarried instantly.

My mother actually tried to get married before her divorce was legal from my dad.

They went.

And they said, ma'am, you're actually still married.

My mother was like, oh.

So I go home and wash my hair.

But they both remarried.

And my stepfather was a radiologist in Minnesota.

And so I was raised there.

And then I went away to school for high school on the East Coast.

So I've been all over the place.

But you do sound more sophisticated than I was at 17.

I don't know.

I mean, listen, I don't even know if I'm sophisticated now.

My favorite restaurant worldwide is the State Fair of Minnesota.

It's just the best, guys.

And I was interested in spaces.

And I was interested in a little bit in mythology.

And a lot in sort of like royal palaces.

And sort of aristocratic homes.

And like really beautiful, beautiful homes and castles.

And Hotel Particular.

And things like that.

I was interested in the intersection between history and design.

Even though I didn't know that I would make a life for myself working in design.

But I was always very sensitive to environment.

I grew up with a mother who was an interior designer.

So our home was constantly changing.

My job was to carry these old wallpaper books in and out of the trunk of her car that weighed more than I did.

She used a lot of old things.

But no.

I mean it was French country.

She knows this.

We've talked about this.

Trust me.

She's listening right now.

No, my mom knew that.

But what I admired about my mother's style was that she never reached for new things.

She always reached for antique furniture or vintage things.

And she loved an auction or an estate sale.

And that was how I got the bug of caring so much about assembling interiors for other people with things that have a little bit of history and soul.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean my mother was very intrepid.

She was, you know, she had a point of view.

And growing up, actually, now that you ask me that, I knew at a very young age that pearls came from China.

Or, you know, great shoes came from France.

Or great leather came from this place.

You know, the tanneries were here.

That's probably why when I land somewhere now, I'm always interested in like the local craft, what's made there, what they do the best job doing.

That's what I always want to know.

It doesn't have to be expensive, but like what's the best thing in Sri Lanka?

What's the best thing in Barcelona?

Like what's the coolest craft in Oaxaca?

What are they known for?

Yeah, through its craft.

It is.

Can I go on a total digression?

Maybe one of the most famous of all the managers.

He was famous because he was the hardest negotiator in Hollywood.

He was like the guy who would argue with you for, you know, two weeks down to the slightest detail of a contract.

And I was chatting with him and I was like, oh, tell me about your childhood.

And he goes, oh, yeah, well, my parents were, and I was really raised by my grandfather.

What did your grandfather do?

Oh, he was in the button business.

I was like, oh, what was that like?

Well, every day after school I would go to my grandfather's office in the garment district and I would sit in a chair and I would listen to him argue over the, you know,

the tenth of a cent difference in a large order of buttons.

Pause.

And I'm like, exactly.

And he looked at me like, what are you talking about?

Didn't see it.

He takes the buttons and he takes it to Hollywood and makes a fortune.

Right?

Exactly.

And he's negotiating over the tenth of a cent of the price of a button still.

Of course.

I'm following this.

And you're right.

My mom and I have talked about over the years.

She's asked me, what do you think my influence on you was as a young person and then obviously in design.

And it was, she taught me how to source.

And I think a good designer has to be really good at sourcing.

Because even in today's age where, you know, obviously, like, at any given moment, at any place in the world, you have to be able to source.

You have to know who makes the hand-painted lampshades on Etsy.

And who makes the Mexican pineapples in Morelia.

And then who, you know, it's just, and then who can put it all together for you and turn it into a coffee table.

So, you know, you've got to know the guy in Brooklyn, too.

So it's, but sourcing is like, is what she gave me.

And especially a love of vintage and craft.

And handmade.

We couldn't find him.

From the BBC World Service.

Season 3.

The Apartheid Killer.

Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Let's talk a little bit about hotels.

Since hotels are such an integral part of the travel experience for so many people.

I was thinking when I was preparing for this about, so what is the,

what's the most wonderful hotel experience I ever had?

And it was in a little hotel in Stockholm.

Which is in an old mansion.

And I've forgotten what the mansion looks like.

And I've forgotten what my room looked like.

I know that it was nice and comfortable.

The genius thing was, there was a huge old oak table.

Immediately adjacent to an open kitchen.

And when you wanted to eat, you went down and you sat at the table.

And the cook came over to you and said, what do you want?

And everybody who stayed at the table, it was a small hotel.

Everyone who stayed there just came and sat at the table.

It was that thing.

Their intention was that they were recreating a Swedish family home.

Of which you were a visitor.

And that's not what I want from every hotel.

But they executed that intention beautifully.

That's what I cared about.

They want to be curated.

They want to be, you know, intentional in their design decisions.

And most definitely design does translate and communicate sort of what,

are you meant to feel chic and urban and, you know, free?

Are you meant to feel relaxed and calm and sunburned?

Like, you know, of course, the furniture and the textiles

and even the distribution of the rooms lends itself to certain activities

and certain feelings.

So I have these clients in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

They're incredibly wonderful.

No, no, they're brilliant.

The pause after incredibly was, that was the genius move.

And they travel probably 300 days a year.

Yeah.

And the goal was to create a home that they liked more than anywhere

they've ever stayed.

They can stay anywhere in the world.

And they can stay in a five-star, rent a house, rent a villa.

They can literally go anywhere they want to go.

But my assignment was to make home feel better than that.

So it's me against, like, man against the world, man.

You know.

allowed me to really figure out who they were as a family,

what really mattered to them, what ceremonies they do in their home,

how they spend time together.

And it offered me an opportunity to build that tile by tile,

pillow by pillow, book by book, and create a space that dreamt a bigger

dream for them as a family than they had even dreamt for themselves.

We knew it was a house.

We knew it had these many bedrooms and these many bathrooms and whatever.

But we started with a lot of imagery.

And I just watched their eyes as they commented.

And I would ask them, why are you smiling when you're talking about that

fireplace?

You've never picked a fireplace in your entire life,

but what is it that you like about that?

And they were able to communicate, well, it feels so rustic,

and it feels so interesting, and it feels like this house in Italy that we

stayed in years ago, and I don't know.

And we really liked the idea of not using a lot of marble in the bathrooms.

It feels too pretentious to us.

And I said, well, what if we just use the marble on the trim,

and the floor is wood, and there's no marble on the countertops in the trim?

But we'll just go around the baseboards and the doors.

There will be no slabs in the shower.

And so it just gradually became this dialogue that went back and forth.

And the goal is not just to assemble something that's beautiful and

meaningful, but to delight the people who have spent this time and money

hiring you to do something.

And I have to say, I get a text from them weekly.

They moved in over a year ago.

Yeah.

And we just love it here.

in the sense that you're always collecting?

I mean, obviously, I'm going to a beach trip with my kids.

You know, I know what I'm doing there.

But all the work trips, I mean, I spent 25 years doing makeovers in all

these towns across the country, sometimes staying there for up to two weeks,

sometimes being there for 48 hours.

I always make it fun.

I want to go to the local antiques malls.

I want to find out who has the best hamburger.

I want the vintage fashion, the coolest monument,

the private museum house.

Like, I can't sit still.

The funny story about the first time I was ever in Madrid with Jeremiah,

my husband, we had canvassed all these museums,

and we had this beautiful lunch, and then we met friends,

and then we went to another district, and we were shopping.

And we came home, and our feet were bleeding.

We were, like, you know, wearing the wrong shoes, of course.

You know, even though we're well-traveled, we wanted to look cute.

You want to look cute when you're in Madrid.

So we got back to the hotel, and he, like, had his feet in the bathtub

and just sitting there, like, sort of softly moaning.

And I was on the bed with one of the magazines that was in the hotel,

and as I was reading this men's fashion story,

I was looking intently at all these decorative boxes and objects and frames

and, like, leather from the 50s and, like, all this, like, really cool stuff.

And then I went to the back of the magazine and found the credit,

and it said the name of this store.

And I called downstairs to the concierge, and he said,

it's closing, but it's actually owned by my neighbor.

If you want me to call him, he'll stay open for you.

And I said, yes, yes, please call him.

I want to see this store.

And Jer finally comes around the corner with his bloody feet,

and I go, you got to put your shoes back on.

what's your process of judgment?

Do you always have a kind of reaction to it?

Do you find yourself frequently appalled, outraged?

Because my version of what you do is stories,

and when a story is badly told, I am furious.

I just, parenthetically, wasted a good three weeks of my life,

and I have no free time to smudge them, watching Ozark.

And after a season and a half, I'm like,

this is absolutely, indescribably appalling.

How do they do this?

I want to go after the showrunner and just say,

you destroyed three weeks of my life.

Do you have any idea how precious that is to me?

Yeah.

But you don't have the same...

You don't have the rage.

No, I mean, I don't.

We're both Virgos.

I know.

I mean, I have rage about other things.

I have rage about dirty laundry, but I don't have rage about that.

But I, no, I mean, the answer to your question, though,

is when I walk in, first of all, I hate that show too.

It's so badly done.

Oh, my God.

It's miserable.

Like, catch them or don't catch them already.

It's the same thing.

It's the same scene every episode.