Five Fits With: Incoming 'Queer Eye' Host Jeremiah Brent
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I'm always looking for different avenues to take with this column, particularly by way of profession. I’ve yet to do one of these with an interior designer, so who better to start with than Jeremiah Brent? He has his own successful interior design firm, Jeremiah Brent Design, and he’s appeared on television many times over the course of his career. He’s also just written a book, the excellent The Space That Keeps You, a warm look at what truly makes a home, starting with his own, and featuring many others as well.
He’s also married to Nate Berkus, the extremely successful and sought-after designer, author, and television personality. The two have an HGTV show together, The Nate and Jeremiah Home Project. As of this week, it was just announced that Jeremiah will replace Bobby Berk as Queer Eye’s resident design expert.
Luckily for us, Jeremiah also loves clothing and style, and that passion is translated in his outfits and answers below. We discussed lessons his mother instilled in him that led him to his passion for design, his new book, how clothes and the closet factor into his idea of a home, and plenty more.
Fit One
Can you tell me a bit about your upbringing and the impact it had on your career?
I grew up with relatively no money and a single mother who worked three jobs my entire life to give us the best of what she could get us, which is why I think I have such a specific type of work ethic. I never stop working. She was a parent who always taught us, even in the busyness of her life, every time we went somewhere, to look around and tell her something that we found that was beautiful. So, I've always chased beauty since I was a kid because of her. I used to go on the weekends to see open houses and I'd fantasize about what I would do to them. It's very fitting that that's what I do now. I still fantasize about people's lives and how I can find beauty in everything, and work my ass off, because of her.
You started to answer it there, but how did you first find a passion for design?
Totally by accident. I didn't even know it was a career, to be honest with you. The business has changed so much, even from when I started. I'm very excited because it's at a point where people are understanding that it's not about how much money you spend—that's actually the least interesting part of it—but how personal you can live and how beautiful you can create spaces that tell your story.
Fit Two
Do you have a memory of when you first became interested in clothing and style?
I've always loved clothing, even when I couldn't afford it. I would go to our local mall, and I'd just walk around and fantasize about what I'd wear. I went through every style you can imagine. I was a skater, I was punk, I was country. Then I got into the Abercrombie days with three polos layered. It was a disaster. But I've always loved fashion and the idea that you can outwardly express things about yourself that you're not even able to do sometimes. That's the beauty of it. And you can be as courageous as you want or as quiet as you want.
Have you learned any lessons through design that have carried over into how you approach personal style?
Yeah, I think that there's a connective tissue, and I love that. I love the idea of seeing people in their spaces matching. I like the idea of layering, mixing vintage and new, the idea of playing with color and composition and texture, playing with different design styles. I mean, that leather jacket I wore today was from the ‘20s mixed with a brand new Bottega Veneta cardigan. I like that mixture. I like when things aren't all one thing.
Fit Three
How much has your career impacted your personal style? Has it changed much?
I hope so. Anybody that stays stagnant in one way drives me crazy. I do have this fantasy of living like these people who have their uniform and style and they're always in it. A good friend of mine, Tonne Goodman, who is an editor for Vogue, is always in a crisp, white button-up and black pants. Thom Browne is another one. He's always in the same suit. But for me, I don't know, there's so much playfulness and fun from it. I definitely have a more refined eye than I did when I was younger. Remember Antique Denim and Holy Grail T-shirts? And every Von Dutch hat that was out there. I needed every color. I spent my entire paycheck on them. Less is more now.
You call your new book an “emotional design book” and ruminate on the idea of what makes a home. Do clothing and the closet impact the emotion of a home? For example, do you wear certain clothes at home versus when you're working?
I do. It's funny. My house is quiet, right? The pallet is subtle. It's all neutrals. That's not how I design. With my projects, it's weird and avant-garde and full of color. It just depends on the project. But when I come home, I want comfort and quiet. I want a space that feels like a respite from all of the pace of what happens outside. And the same with clothes. I come home and I find myself instantly reaching for something with an elastic waistband. I like a baggy, really comfortable sweatpant and a big, baggy T-shirt. It's a really unattractive silhouette, but it's all about relaxation. Clothes definitely influence it. There's something to be said about walking into a space and seeing people matching the space and looking like they live there. I like imagining, when I meet people, just based off of the dress, how they live. It's fun.
Fit Four
And when I said closet, I meant the literal closet’s impact. I'm asking because our house, for example, since it's really old, doesn’t have closets. My office is our closet and we have racks we bought on Amazon holding our clothes and it's driving us crazy. So, is that a big factor in when you're working with a client?
Of course. That's one of those things I call the spaces in between, which are the most important spaces: closets, organization, a window seat, all these moments that really where you spend your day. Your closet is where you start and end your day theoretically. So it's one of the most important things. Jokingly, my husband refers to our closet as my investment portfolio. I have a lot of pride in what I've been able to buy the same way I have pride in the way we live because we work really hard for it. Those spaces matter almost as much, if not more, than other spaces.
Do you have any advice for readers who want to transform their homes or apartments and might not have the means to purchase many objects or big pieces of furniture?
Living beautifully has nothing to do with how much money you spend or how much you have or don't have. It has everything to do with the outward manifestation and articulation of who you are internally as a person in your space. If you're somebody who loves to read every morning and it's important that you have coffee in the sun, don't do your dining room as a dining room because you're supposed to. Build the entire room around that moment. The most important and most beautiful rooms I've ever been in had nothing to do with classic beauty. It had everything to do with the beauty of intention, ceremony, memory, experience. That's my hope with my book, at least, is people stop talking about home in the sense of making it look like a catalog and more about making it look like themselves.
Fit Five
What are some of your favorite clothing brands?
Well, I'm a huge fan of vintage. I love Second/Layer a lot. It's a new favorite. Saint Laurent and Celine, obviously, which is not interesting but they're favorites. I love vintage Levi's. I have a million pairs of them. They make me really happy. Old, old, old denim all day long.
Do you have any interesting projects on the horizon, outside of your new book?
A ton. Aside from the fact that I have a bunch of products that I'm licensing and launching, in the next two years, figuring out what I'm going to do next on television and planning that next move. The design firm, Jeremiah Brent Design, is doing really exciting projects from coast to coast and internationally, and really great work where we're really pushing the boundaries and creating things that feel original, which, as you know, is not easy to do anymore, but I believe it's possible. This year's all about getting my weird on as much as possible.
If you had to wear one outfit for the rest of your life, what would it consist of?
A black, kind-of-loose sweater, black slacks like the ones I’m wearing [in outfit five], and a pair of black Derby shoes. That's my uniform, I guess.
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