Colin King: From Dancer to Designer, ‘Arranging Things’
Colin King has become a leading interiors stylist for the world’s best-known brands and publications. But before his rise in design, he spent his days training as a dancer.
“I came to school here in the city for dance,” he says, calling from New York where he’s based. He’s originally from Ohio.
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He ventured into various jobs through the years — from personal training and real estate to the world of tech startups and content creation — before making a name for himself and garnering a clientele.
“I was doing a lot of different jobs to pay rent,” he admits sincerely in his soft voice.
It was a meeting with Tom Delavan, design and interiors director of T Magazine, that changed the course of his career. He would get hired by Delavan, working as a freelancer before getting signed to an agent in 2019.
“I’ve been styling full time since,” King says.
Now he is releasing his first book, “Arranging Things,” out via Rizzoli. It’s 240 pages of text (written in collaboration with Sam Cochran) and photographs that capture the worlds he has created, forming a signature style in modern American design.
Here, King talks about his career, the importance of not planning, and how an empty space is often the most powerful.
WWD: You didn’t begin your career in design. What led you to where you are today?
Colin King: I’ve always been looking for ways to express myself, particularly without words. I love being able to create art and leaving it up for interpretation of the viewer. That’s always been the common thread.
I was a dancer and moved to L.A., lived there for five years, and I could not book a job to save my life out there. Oh my god, my agent at the time was like, “You should look into something else. You should go into training.” I went into personal training for a little bit. And with the kind of clients that I was working with, it opened my eyes to design I had never experienced before. Because, you know, growing up in rural Ohio and then living in New York as a dancer — in a three-bedroom, four roommate apartment — I never saw design in that way and something sparked. A client of mine at the time offered me a job as an estate manager, and I managed a few homes. It was all styling, basically. “This is how they want their flowers, and how they like their beds made.”
I knew I wanted to get in design, but I didn’t want to go back to school, so I got my real estate license randomly…that only lasted a year. And then I went into a design tech start-up, which folded quickly…and then I was at a design firm. I was their content manager, so I built these vignettes, built their social media, built out their editorial side and just dove into the world of content. I then moved back to New York in 2017…I pitched a story to The New York Times, and I met the design director there, Tom Delavan, and he offered me a job. Just between working for him as an interior designer and freelancing, it helped me where I am now.
WWD: There’s a section in the book about the art of emptiness. You mention refinement and the power of storytelling through visual language. Has there been a singular story that you’ve been telling throughout your work?
C.K.: I think styling is all about relationships. And it’s actually abandoning a plan, really, every time that I come into any sort of shoot or work. What I do is really best executed when I’m able to surrender to the project and get out of my own way. There’s a lot of magic that happens just being on set that I can’t plan for. If I plan too much, I’m constantly disappointed by, “Oh, it doesn’t match up to the fantasy that I had of what this should look like.” I think it’s actually a nice metaphor for life, of just keeping this channel open, because it is a channel of creativity and being able to get into flow.
It’s funny that you mention the art of emptiness, because that is actually my favorite chapter. I think it’s one of the most striking ones, because it is relatively, probably contradictory to arranging things. But there’s a lot of power in leaving spaces feeling unfinished. I have so many clients that move into a home, and they’re like, “Oh, my favorite feeling is when I just move in, and there’s potential.” There’s a childlike feeling of not doing every corner, of not placing a million things onto your shelves. Often we’re just buying things to fill emptiness rather than waiting to discover the perfect piece that would fit really nicely there. Emptiness sparks potential, and I think there can be power in it. The story I’m telling is the power of a light touch.
WWD: How have you worked with fashion objects in the past?
C.K.: I love incorporating fashion objects. There’s a lot of tabletops that I style for Roman and Williams Guild, creating these beautiful still lifes. There’s a surrealism I like to bring to it. Sourcing jewelry has been part of my process recently…like having a model hand in an image and seeing a beautiful ring and how that talks to a napkin ring. Finding those parallels between fashion and home is something I’m really interested in. A lot of fashion brands are doing home now. That’s been really interesting to see. I hope there’s going be a lot more crossover. I think the dialogue is really interesting. I love Hermès home. I think they do an amazing job. Ultimately, objects are kind of the jewelry of the home.
WWD: What’s next for you? What are you currently working on?
C.K.: I’m working on an exhibition that I’m really excited about that opens on Memorial Day. It’s a nomadic gallery called Object and Thing. Basically, they take their artists into historic homes. They show the work in a residential context. So, there’s a show going up at the LongHouse in East Hampton. And that’ll be up the entire summer. And I get to arrange. It’s called “A Summer Arrangement.” It’s this guy, [the late] Jack Lenor Larsen, an amazing textile designer and collector. I’m mixing his collection with the contemporary artists from Object and Thing and making these beautiful arrangements throughout the house. And also, I’m doing exhibition design for 3 Days of Design, which is a big design week in Copenhagen with the Menu team. So much of my experience is in 2D, so when people can go and actually see a 360 arrangement, it excites me.
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