Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:28:40 · S2, Alexa von Tobel, Nate Berkus
[00:28:40] S2: Yeah. [00:28:40] S1: You are so truly design obsessed. And, you know, on on this show, we get to have the most ambitious people in the world. And you have been on the 8,100 list for almost a decade. Your husband is on the list. It... When you really step back and think about design, true design, you are one of the top people on the planet for design. And what is fun is how absolutely obfucking zest you are with design. And everybody, you guys should just know that Nate and I were giggling the other day because literally he wakes up and easily got one eye open to auction markets at all time trying to [00:29:19] S0: Every time. Every... Yeah. [00:29:21] S1: Curate. And you're so authentically obsessed. And my question is, how do you maintain that creativity? Like, you evolve, and I've even looked at your work over years and obviously with your incredible new book, which we're gonna talk about, it's coming out November 18. But how do you maintain that obsession? [00:29:42] S2: What does it look like?
00:29:42 · Nate Berkus
[00:29:42] S0: It's not... You know what? It's absolute zero effort for me. Absolutely. And you know, as the oldest sibling, I have three younger brothers on my dad's side, I have a younger brother and a younger sister on my mother's side. And as they were all coming of age, they would come to me cause I'd already started my company and they'd say like, what do you think we should do? And I remember going to the magazine aisle of our local drugstore and saying, show me what you are interested in, Pull them out. Is it People magazine because you're celebrity obsessed or musician obsessed or whatever? Is it sports collecting? Is it memorabilia? Is it architecture? Is it a medical journal? Is it society, or you wanna read Town and Country? I didn't know. And we would take up the pile of magazines and go through the titles and I'd ask them, Well, what do you love about this? What do you wanna learn more about? Even when no one's paying you. And that for me is really the source of what the constant creativity is for me. I don't just love fabrics or rugs or anything specific like that, I love history. I love culture. I love learning about craft. I like seeing the best thing when I'm standing in Cusco in Peru, I wanna go to the local markets where the local people shop, not the weird ones filled with Chinese stuff that tourists are supposed to buy. I wanna know where people buy their pots and pans because I wanna see the placemat and the napkins that they use at home, And so for me, design has just always been a really wonderful way for me to translate what I'm naturally curious about and what I really love. And the collecting aspect is so sick, like I'm such a basket case around it, that I would way rather have some object for the home, a set of dishes, a beautifully crafted photo frame, a vintage lamp than anything else. Very It's funny... I remember when I met Julianne Moore for the first time and she was doing the Bottega Veneta campaign, we were at a dinner for Tomas Maier, who was the designer at the time. We were seated next to each other and we started talking and she was like, Oh, I don't want jewelry and I definitely don't want clothes. I want French furniture from the 1950s. And I was like, and I want to marry you. Like, you and I... Like, you're gonna...
00:32:19 · Nate Berkus, Alexa von Tobel
I hope you're making a lot of money on the movies because now I'm gonna send you links all the time from these weird auctions, which I do. So there's relationships built on shared interests and I love the world of design. I'll never run out of ideas or I'll never stop learning, and I think that that's also something really special about it. [00:32:43] S1: Nate, my head just exploded because that is literally the best answer, which is it is effortless for you. [00:32:50] S0: Effortless. Don't even think about it. [00:32:52] S1: I... And I actually... That feels like my love of entrepreneurship. Like, it is... I I would do this for free. You don't have to [00:32:59] S0: You're fascinated by it. [00:33:00] S1: I am fascinated. I will spend all the time thinking about how to figure out how to stand it up, and I call it... Like, it's my playset. It's my intellectual playset. I'm just playing. Yep. [00:33:11] S0: I totally get it. It... They're your Legos. Companies are your Legos. [00:33:14] S1: Actually, they're... That's an inside joke, everybody, because my son is psychotically obsessed with Legos. [00:33:22] S0: He's actually a master builder. Our sons are the same age, in the same class, and our sons both are obsessed with Legos. The difference is that I go to pick up Oscar from Alexa's house and there's like [00:33:38] S1: It's a problem. [00:33:38] S0: The Great Wall Of China has been built out of Legos and runs through the entire living room. I'm like, Wait, Cashel, how did you do this? He's My
00:33:38 · Nate Berkus, Alexa von Tobel, S2
[00:33:38] S0: The Great Wall Of China has been built out of Legos and runs through the entire living room. I'm like, Wait, Cashel, how did you do this? He's My [00:33:47] S1: true design confession is that right now the Colosseum is on our dining table, and we don't [00:33:52] S2: know where to put it. [00:33:53] S1: And it's the full Roman Colosseum, and I need... I had, like... And I can't throw it away, and I'm [00:33:57] S0: so No. [00:33:58] S1: Stuck. I'm stuck. No. But... Yeah. And Nate does not judge. He's extremely loving to be No. Nate, that's just such a beautiful answer. It is actually effortless for you. And I think I'm gonna ask a question that I feel like I already know the answer to, but you and Jeremiah do this together. I mean, he is also a profoundly talented designer, and you guys have such a beautiful relationship that it also is rooted in creativity. How do you guys make that work? How how does that work? [00:34:30] S0: It's really funny. We had to, well, there's two things I'll say. So let me speak to being on TV together, which initially was really hard for me because I was the guy that called the shots for twenty years. And then Jeremiah came in and he was like, I don't like that rug. [00:34:47] S1: By the way, [00:34:47] S0: can't do [00:34:48] S1: that forever. Can I just? We like... Guys, sometimes I look at Nate and I just... I like I like whisper and I'm like, his hair. Like, his hair. I just... It's like... It is like an actual masterpiece. Okay. Sorry. Just needed to get that off my chest.
00:34:48 · Alexa von Tobel, Nate Berkus, S2
[00:34:48] S1: that forever. Can I just? We like... Guys, sometimes I look at Nate and I just... I like I like whisper and I'm like, his hair. Like, his hair. I just... It's like... It is like an actual masterpiece. Okay. Sorry. Just needed to get that off my chest. [00:35:02] S0: That is really Chris McMillan thanks you, by the way. I hope he's listening. But I will say that on television when we did our very first TV show together, which was on TLC, we would fight because I was a bit egalitarian. Tried to hear his perspective, but I didn't really believe him. I didn't trust his instinct. And I knew that we were on a very constrained timeframe and I was used to being the guy. Like, yep, it's this, this and this, move on, okay, it's gonna be that tile. Oh, that countertop's not available, just switch it. And he was like, excuse me, Nate and Jeremiah by design. Not Nate by design, this isn't your world anymore. I'm here and I may not have done this as long as you, but if we're gonna do this together, you will have the level of respect for me that I'm telling you I need. To be honest, full disclosure, it took a few makeovers for me to be like, Oh my God, he's got great ideas. This is gonna be... Because it was very early on in our marriage that we started doing TV shows together. So I learned to trust him in that way and I learned to also let you know, in that way. [00:36:28] S1: By the way, it's a good trick in marriage. [00:36:30] S0: Yeah, no shit. [00:36:32] S2: You can't [00:36:32] S1: get everybody.
00:36:32 · Alexa von Tobel, Nate Berkus, S2
[00:36:32] S1: get everybody. [00:36:34] S0: Exactly, exactly. There's certain things that guess I mean, it's shocking that someone else's opinion can actually be right when you're so convinced it's not, like what? However, when we design for ourselves and on behalf of clients, it's a little bit different, takes a lot longer, it's a little bit more personal in some ways. And so we figured out some ground rules. And I think the first and most important one is that we are not allowed if someone gives us a hard no, you would never survive this, Alexa. But if someone gives us a hard no, we are not allowed to try and sell the other person. You have to walk away. So as much as I loved this chest of drawers that I thought would be perfect in our entry, He was like, I hate it, no. And I can't, that's it, end of conversation. So we just keep going until we find a yes. [00:37:27] S1: Wait, that's amazing. By the way, what a good ground rule. [00:37:30] S0: It's a great rule, because it's so clear, it's so clean, and I love an actionable. So it's like, great, that's the rule, there's no bending it, there's I'm no breaking [00:37:42] S1: not listening to this one all day. [00:37:44] S2: I'm like, I'm giving you [00:37:45] S1: some trouble. But that's such a good rule.