Interiors Stylist Colin King Celebrates First Book ‘Arranging Things’ in Hollywood
On Tuesday evening, Colin King, a stylist and creative director known for styling interiors for brands and publications including Roman and Williams Guild, Crate & Barrel, Architectural Digest and Elle Decor, celebrated the launch of his first book, Arranging Things (Rizzoli). The event, held at The Future Perfect’s Goldwyn House (the Hollywood Hills mansion named after legendary film producer and former owner of the home, Samuel Goldwyn), welcomed a range of creative guests including Troye Sivan, Jessie Andrews, Jake Arnold, Chriselle Lim and more.
The book’s title is a phrase found in King’s Instagram bio, a literal distillation of what he does as a stylist working in interiors. “My first mentor Tom Delavan, the design/interiors director at T Magazine, humbly said [to me], ‘You’re just a mover with an eye.’ That’s really all it is. It’s just moving things, and finding and forging those relationships that feel interesting and tell a story,” King tells The Hollywood Reporter. Arranging Things (published March 14) offers an inside look into the stylist’s process of elevating spaces, told through anecdotes and striking imagery.
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David Alhadeff, founder of contemporary design gallery The Future Perfect, is a friend of King’s, making the gallery owner’s personal home-meets-showspace an ideal location for the event.
“I think when you can go into a private home and experience works of art, melding culture and the residential, there’s something really special that happens — people can envision how they can live with [art] in their own space,” King says. “[David] was really a pioneer in showing artwork in a residential context.”
Tuesday night’s event was catered by chef and event producer Olivia Muniak and sponsored by Maison Margiela’s REPLICA Fragrances, as the first West Coast celebration of the brand’s new On a Date candle and diffuser scent. Guests roamed around all three levels of the home (taking photos, getting books signed, gasping at the unique playfulness of The Future Perfect’s design choices) and chatted over glasses of wine in the backyard’s sculpture garden, framed by a forest of trees.
Cinematic, secluded and warm with candlelight, the home was transformed into a living exhibit of art and vibrant, sculptural furniture, including pieces from King’s forthcoming product collaboration with The Future Perfect. “They’re in the house kind of as prototypes, as a conversation starter,” King says. “It’s this constant dialogue between art, design, living and using pieces.”
King, who describes his aesthetic as “warm minimalism,” began the book-making process with the framework for his story, but enlisted the help of Sam Cochran, Architectural Digest global features director, to help translate the creative process behind his visual medium into a series of essays organically organized into different chapters.
“Being self taught…I don’t have a process. It just intuitive. It’s innate,” King explains. “[Sam] was really able to distill it and ask me the right questions to tease it out of me. Like, ‘I know your objects are talking to you, but can you tell me what they’re saying?’”
“Colin sprinkles magic in whatever room he enters. It was a joy to unpack his process together, poring through thousands of images to distill his ethos into a series of themes,” Cochran told THR in an emailed statement. “It takes a brilliant eye to capture the essence of a room and to tease out beauty from the everyday.”
This collaborative effort with other creatives is a familiar working style for King, who has worked on various high-profile editorial shoots, including styling his longtime client Gwyneth Paltrow’s home for the cover of AD.
Ultimately, Arranging Things is a treatise on the oft-underestimated power of objects, and how curating a space — or a life — around them is a worthy and beautiful pursuit.
“I think fewer, better things is always interesting, but even with so few things, people still feel enveloped and warm when they come into the space. Not like a cold monastery, [but] very layered in texture,” King muses. “I think so many people buy things for certain areas. For me, styling is such a daily practice that really empowers me to see the world in a new and interesting way. And I hope that [this book] does the same for the reader…whether it’s a bowl, a single candlestick, a branch…to arrange them in an elevated way that feels simple but sophisticated.”
