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By Sian Ballen & Lesley Hauge Photographs by Jeff Hirsch Brooklyn and its aesthetic is so popular and widespread now that it’s surprising there aren’t more books like Brooklyn Interiors (Rizzoli) authored by Kathleen Hackett, a writer of some 15 books and counting on design and cooking. She will probably be a good sport about it but we can’t resist including that one of them was "Dolly’s Dixie Fixin’s," ghostwritten for Dolly Parton.
I guess the first thing I want to know is when people look at these interiors, what do you think it is about them that is appealing? I think that it is an individualistic approach. You don’t really get the impression that someone [in the book] is coveting someone else’s sofa. They’re coveting the one they want. But isn’t the point of these books to make people covet that kind of life—or a least that’s the effect of books like these? Well, the main point is to push people to do what is expressly “them”. There’s not one interior in this book that’s been done by a decorator. |
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I was looking for a common theme apart from the fact that they’re all Brooklyn interiors and I suppose that might be it. But even though you say they’re individualistic, there is—and perhaps you wouldn’t agree—a definite kind of “look” isn’t there? There’s a look, I think … this is over-used these days, but it’s always been the way in any community where there are creative people, where there is an eclecticism. I’m sorry I hate the word. Yeah, everyone hates that word but it’s useful. I say it sort of tentatively because Brooklyn is always changing. We got to laughing about how, by the time the book is published, this non-aesthetic aesthetic will have transformed into something else. But this “Brooklyn look” has become weirdly aspirational. These lives depicted are settled and er … well some might say very bourgeois. [Laughs] Yes! There’s no hiding that! I mean you should see my family … we’re not hippies. I would say me … and many, many people in this book … their greatest aspiration is just to live a decent, good, interesting life. |
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Some of the photos present a kind of idyll almost. I wish my kids were here because it wouldn’t be so idyllic … I think everybody’s life is real to them. It could come off as a bit smug. Were you worried about that when you were you were putting the book together? That was a real thing. We were very careful about which interiors we included. It strikes me that this look is more European than American. Do you think that’s true? Definitely. There’s a laissez-faire-ness to it. I’ve just re-done my kitchen and I didn’t want a “re-done kitchen”. I hate that look. I did my best to sort of make it feel good in there; I made the floor nice so that I can be barefoot in there … |
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Yes, there were quite a few barefoot people in the book … and Scandinavians. [Laughs] Were there!!? I know we’re grilling you on this “Brooklyn look” but I have to say that my son was going on school trip to Japan and he was supposed to bring a gift. His teacher said that anything with the word “Brooklyn” on it would be a hit. Brooklyn is now officially a brand, it would seem. What do you think of the branding of Brooklyn? We’re like rolling our eyes at that. Boring, boring, it’s just boring. It has nothing to do with our life at all. We’re just parents raising boys. We’re cooking dinner every single night. I’m doing my work … we’re too old for it actually. So why did you want to do this book? I’m finding that the more I write about design, the more I’m trying to find the person in the design. The design is the way into the people and more and more, that’s what really interests me. You know what I really want to do? I want to shoot [the interiors of] old people who have lived in their houses for a long time. Those are the most interesting houses to me. |
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I know another controversy concerning Brooklyn, and your book plays into that, is the whole gentrification thing. What’s your take on that? I was having this conversation with the dad of one of my kid’s friends. He grew up on State Street and people love to talk about what it was like with crack houses and drugs and how terrible it was. He said they sold his mother’s house in 2009 and I said, “We just moved here because we needed a place to live.” We certainly don’t chase trendy things. We never have. I guess there’s one argument that it lifts all boats. I guess if you talk to our neighbor who has lived here since 1940 when this neighborhood was largely Hispanic, they might feel differently. I’m not sure what the alternative is. But cities change, they just do. And people don’t automatically move to the suburbs when they have kids these days. Yeah, which seems to be reversing trend. That was what you did—you moved to Montclair or Westchester. I don’t know. [She turns to her husband, Stephen who dropped by] Do we feel like gentrifiers? Stephen: I don’t know. It’s a process. Inevitably there’s someone who’s lamenting, “Oh these people are moving in” but ten years before that someone else is lamenting him moving in. There’s this constant dynamic. Ten years later, Joe Land Rover is pulling in. It doesn’t happen a lot of places but it happens to happen here. I think the whole thing of the street dynamic is [important] and that’s one thing that changes. There’s a social thing that changes. If there are four families living in a brownstone that means there’s a lot of street activity and as a result everyone gets to know each other. There’s all these overlaps and people looking out for each other. But then you get a single family residence and they have a country house and they’re gone on weekends. That’s a bummer. I love taking out the garbage because that’s when I bump into people. |
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How neighborly is your street?
I would say very. We have a block party every end-of-summer. What’s really interesting though is that you generally only know people who are on your side. |
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