\u201cPeople have different tastes in clothing, music, and movies,\u201d says AD\u2019s global editorial director and US editor in chief, Amy Astley. \u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t it be the same with interiors?\u201d<\/p>\n
This philosophy\u2014that interiors should be as distinctive as the people who inhabit them\u2014drives Astley\u2019s new book, AD at Home<\/a>, out this month from Rizzoli. While her previous book, Architectural Digest at 100<\/a>, had a sweeping historical scope, this volume is intimate, featuring Astley\u2019s personal curation of 69 homes from her nearly decade-long tenure. It\u2019s a portrait not just of extraordinary architecture and decoration, but of the creatives behind them: interior designers, architects, actors, musicians, visual artists, fashion designers, models, and more.<\/p>\n Here, Astley shares how she chose the homes that made the cut, the process of creating the volume, and why personality, not perfection, remains the secret ingredient of an AD-worthy space.<\/p>\n AD PRO: Let\u2019s start with the million-dollar question. How do you choose the houses that get featured in AD?<\/p>\n Amy Astley: People always ask me how we choose them! I look for things that are visually original\u2014something I haven\u2019t seen before, that my editors haven\u2019t seen before, that our audience hasn\u2019t seen before. I always say to the team that we\u2019re looking for best in class. Not every beach cottage or every modern house\u2014but the exceptional, the memorable, the ones that feel like they could only belong to the people living there. Ultimately, what I look for is that a home is very personal. That\u2019s always the secret for any home: a house should feel like it could only belong to that one person.<\/p>\n I\u2019m obsessed with personal style\u2014how people dress, prepare food, decorate, arrange flowers, present their world visually. I find it endlessly interesting. For me, the most fun thing about AD is tracking fascinating people in their houses. AD should make your world feel bigger, expose you to new ideas and places, and delight your senses.<\/p>\n