Apartment Feature/ Home Journal

Photography: Jonny Valiant/ Tripod Agency, Styling: Studio Marcus Hay

Photography: Jonny Valiant/ Tripod Agency, Styling: Studio Marcus Hay

Photography: Jonny Valiant/ Tripod Agency, Styling: Studio Marcus Hay

Photography: Jonny Valiant/ Tripod Agency, Styling: Studio Marcus Hay

Last year Photographer Jonny Valiant and I photographed my apartment and studio, Studio Marcus Hay in Chelsea, NYC. Hong Kong based magazine Home Journal has just picked up a portion of the story, They have only shown the apartment side of the story to my knowledge in their latest issue and it's only shown here in a condensed form on our blog as I am yet to receive a whole issue to review.

The last time Home Journal published another story on another apartment of mine in New York was 2010 so it's great to be gracing their cover and pages once again, Thanks to Home Journal for including me once again. 

The feature was written by the amazing Ian Philips of Tripod Agency and a part of it is as follows, Thanks Ian for all the wonderful words and all his help in producing this feature:  

Treasured furniture, quirky finds, and a host of vintage posters and art mingle in the spontaneous yet well-planned space of creative director Marcus Hay

For Australian-born Marcus Hay, storage is always a problem. As a sought after stylist and creative director, Marcus is constantly amassing objects for his job, which eventually took over his small apartment. “My cupboards were brimming with props and my work life was overshadowing my home life,” he recalls. He decided it was time for a change. So, when a 750-sq-ft unit became available in the same apartment block, he jumped at the chance.

The building in question is London Terrace, one of the most iconic residential high-rises in New York. It takes up a whole block in Chelsea and is comprised of roughly 1,700 flats, and counts Chelsea Clinton and photographer Annie Leibovitz as previous occupants.

When Marcus first saw the one-bedroom apartment in 2010, it was “like an empty shell.” The period features were still in place, but the walls were completely white, which he thought of as a blank canvas. The first thing he did was to paint it. “I like to live with my palette of colours around me,” he says. “I kind of like a grey that has an undertone hue. So, the apartment is a series of green-y and blue-y greys.” 

Apartment Feature/ AD Russia, HK Home Journal

It’s amazing where some stories end up that I style for shoots. This time my old apartment ended up in AD Russia and also in Home Journal, a Hong Kong based magazine. It’s quite a compliment that the way I live at home appeals to lot’s of different cultures/ countries around the world. It’s also interesting to see the different approaches to the layout and what pictures get used in one layout compared to the next. In the HK Home Journal, my dining space even appeared on their cover for that month!

For me it’s a little strange, I have not lived in that apartment for 18 months, so to see it is a little trip down memory lane. Of course I still have a lot of the same things but then I notice my taste or my combination of objects has shifted a little since then and a lot of these items featured in this story are now in my prop storage. When I moved into my new space, I tried to divide my workspace and home space as much as I could and because my new space is smaller, I had to edit. When you are a Stylist there is always new stuff so life seems to be about a constant edit!

These stories were shot by the amazing Jonny Valiant, http://www.jonnyvaliant.com.au/