The Essentials With Amy Astley: Chanel Slingbacks, Balanchine Ballets and Her Favorite Interiors
Architectural Digest’s global editorial director discusses her new book, travel staples and off-menu order from her favorite neighborhood restaurant.
Read More
To mark her 100th issue exploring the homes of celebrities and creatives at Architectural Digest, global editorial director Amy Astley wanted to give readers something that they could display in their own homes. With AD at Home, Astley highlights her favorite interiors—from townhomes and beachside mansions to a houseboat in Copenhagen—all wrapped up into a lush coffee table book whose slightly unexpected pale pink and aubergine color combination is representative of the eclectic homeowners inside.
“I felt this book should celebrate the people in Architectural Digest: interesting people with exciting houses that people remember,” Astley tells Observer. Among those memorable homes, you’ll find sun-drenched California retreats from the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Dakota Johnson. But you’ll also find Gloria Steinem’s memento-filled Manhattan apartment and the spherical home and studio space that Japanese artist Mariko Mori commissioned on Miyako Island.
Then, there’s the fashion set, who feature prominently in Astley’s vision for Architectural Digest, which has included building a digital presence of more than seven million YouTube subscribers and creating a more culturally relevant brand for the 100-plus-year-old publication. “The fashion world offers up lots of interesting characters,” she says, noting that AD at Home opens with Marc Jacobs and his four-story Manhattan townhouse for visual and sentimental reasons. “Marc’s house is one of the most memorable that I’ve photographed because it’s a surprising house,” Astley says of its unexpected aesthetic. “Marc has always been a little bit of a wild child of the fashion world, but his house is super tailored and very formal. And then he really has major artworks by Urs Fischer, Elizabeth Peyton, John Currin, Ellsworth Kelly, Ed Ruscha—it all comes together into something that could only be his house,” she explains.
Marc Jacobs’ home was also the first cover Astley produced for Architectural Digest when she joined the magazine as editor-in-chief in 2016. “I think a lot of people in the industry were sort of like, ‘Who’s this fashion girl from Teen Vogue?’” Astley recalls of being appointed to the role by Anna Wintour, Condé Nast’s artistic director and Vogue’s editor-in-chief at the time. But interior design was far from “out of the blue,” as Astley puts it, given that her journalism career began at House & Garden magazine. “I worked there for a little bit under five years, but I started as the editor-in-chief’s second assistant,” says Astley. “This was pre-email days, and it sort of took two assistants to deal with the office because the phones were ringing so maniacally all day long.” When Condé Nast announced the magazine’s closure in 1993, Astley was recommended to Wintour by a senior colleague and landed a position as an associate beauty editor at Vogue. Now considered Wintour’s protégé, Astley would be promoted to beauty director just a year later.
“I thought I would go to Vogue for a year or two and then pivot back into interiors,” Astley says of the switch. “But Vogue ended up being a very exciting place for me, and Anna gave me a lot of challenges and responsibilities.” Those responsibilities included launching Teen Vogue in 2003, where Astley served as editor-in-chief for more than 10 years, and building long-lasting relationships with celebrities and fashion’s elite in the process. “Teen Vogue taught me how to lead a team, how to spot talent, how to trust my instincts—it was also the place where I really cut my teeth learning the digital business,” shares Astley. “But I do feel I came full circle with Architectural Digest; back to my beginning at House & Garden and my passion for interiors.”
Nearly 10 years in with Architectural Digest, Astley continues to be inspired by fashion designers. “I don’t know that she’s ever shown her home in Milan, and I don’t really expect that she will, but Miuccia Prada would be a dream,” Astley says of a home she’d most like to peek inside. “She’s such a brilliant person, and what makes the house interesting is really her.” But she also finds ideas for new features through the people she meets, whether she’s attending a work lunch hosted by Chanel or a ballet gala at Lincoln Center on a night off. “I call it house whispering,” she says of scoping out new homes.
As she gets ready for her international book tour—and perhaps some “house whispering” on the road—Amy Astley spoke with Observer about her current essentials, from the beauty products she’ll be traveling with to the off-menu item she orders when she’s home.
Her skincare routine
I always wear sunscreen—every day, rain or shine, winter or summer. Basically, I do a mild cleanser, a serum, a moisturizer, a sunscreen and an eye cream. I trade off between different serums and moisturizers; I have things from Estée Lauder, I have things from Augustinus Bader, I also have a lot of Sisley. My friend, Christine d’Ornano, whose beach house in Biarritz is in the book, her family owns Sisley, so I’m always getting a care package. But sunscreen is the most important thing, I got that from my mom. Right now, I’m using a really good one from Augustinus Bader.
The ballets she’ll see on repeat
I’m such a freak for ballet. I trained growing up in Michigan, and I went to Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet in the summers. I love Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, and Mark Morris’ Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes is one of my favorite ballets I’ve ever seen. I saw Alexei Ratmansky’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium at an American Ballet Theatre gala, and I’m always begging them to stage it more often. But really, I’ll see anything [George] Balanchine: Jewels, Ballo della Regina, which he made for Merrill Ashley, who was my favorite dancer at New York City Ballet when I was a little baby bunhead, Allegro Brillante, which Balanchine said contains, ‘everything I know about classical ballet.’
What she’s reading
I read the New York Times cover to cover every day, which is a lot of reading, but I’m curious about everything and I’m always learning from it. And then I have a huge stack of books. Right now, I’m sort of halfway through Graydon Carter’s book, When the Going Was Good. I read this a while ago, but it’s a book called The Lamb. My daughter is a book editor, and that was her first book that she acquired and edited at Harper Collins, so I read The Lamb, and I always recommend that to people, although it’s a tough book. I’m about to read The Wedding People, which both of my daughters really loved, and then I’ve also started The Doorman by Chris Pavone, who is a friend of mine from Long Island. He had amazing reviews for his book, which is sort of an updated, modern The Bonfire of the Vanities; it’s about New York. So that’s sort of where I’m at, but there’s a huge stack, and I’m always adding things to the stack and struggling to get through them.
Favorite vacation spot
I’m very lucky to have a house in Long Island on the North Fork, and it is my favorite place to go. I associate it with nature and my family and my friends. A really good place to have a lobster roll and get seafood you can make at home is called the Southold Fish Market. I always send people there to have a lobster roll. It’s very North Fork, and it also reminds me a bit of northern Michigan. I grew up in Michigan, but I spent time in the Upper Peninsula as a kid, and the North Fork reminds me of that; it’s not pretentious and it’s kind of folksy.
If I’m going to travel somewhere else, I love Mexico. I’ve been to Esencia several times, which is sort of near Tulum, and that is a beautiful, beautiful place to go. If I’m taking time off with my family, I am a beach vacation person for sure. I want to read those books, and I want to swim—I love being in the water. That’s something I love about the North Fork; I live on the water, I’m always in the water there.
What she’s traveling with
You have to do a carry-on, but sometimes you cannot avoid checking a bag. I am going to San Francisco, and I’m there for four or five days. I have day events, night events, keynote speeches—I’m not going to get a whole wardrobe into a carry-on bag, so sadly, I have some checked bags coming for me. I have T. Anthony luggage, and it’s all been with me a long time, it’s all taken a beating. On the plane, I’m that annoying person with the small bag and the big tote. I have to have a lip balm, I have to have a hand lotion or a cuticle cream and I really won’t get on a plane without my own bottle of water. I love Aesop hand cream, and the lip balm, it ranges from Maybelline Baby Lips to some Hermès lip balm that someone gave me. The Barbara Sturm lip balm is so good, and it doubles as a cuticle cream. I have very dry cuticles, so if I have Barbara Sturm, put it on your lips, put it on your cuticles—one little tub and you’re done. You also need a book, you need your headphones, I always need a sweater or a wrap and an extra pair of warm socks.
Her go-to spot in Tribeca
I love a restaurant called Houseman on Greenwich Street. It’s near where I live in Tribeca, and it’s a great neighborhood spot with locals. My friend, Ned [Baldwin], is the owner/chef, and the food is fantastic. He’s kind of famous for the burger, but I always eat the plate salad, which is not on the menu—you have to ask for it, but they’ll make it for you. And the plate salad is like the best baby gem lettuces, the best avocado, they’ll put this perfectly cooked egg that’s soft, but not mushy. It’s such a good salad.
The one thing in her wardrobe she refuses to part with
I have tons of Chanel slingback shoes. Some have a higher heel, some lower, I have many different color combos. They’re comfortable, they’re light, they’re small, so you can pack them, they look good with everything. It’s certainly not an issue of getting rid of them, if anything, I just keep collecting more in different colorways with the little toe—I find them so elegant and easy to wear. There’s a box of pointe shoes somewhere around. That’s not really my wardrobe, but they do represent my past, that’s for sure. I have two daughters who are in their 20s, so there’s no reason to get rid of anything. They want it all; they’ll take it, they’ll give it new life, wear it in a different way. I’m really happy when I see them wearing my old clothes, or, I have a lot of vintage jewelry, and the girls are into all of it.
