Living Genuinely: Elle Decor's Asad Syrkett on a Design Magazine's Responsibility, the Intersection of Identity, and Paying it Forward
By Julia Gamolina
Asad Syrkett is the Editor-in-Chief of ELLE Decor. Before taking the helm, he ran business operations in New York for Hem, an independent Swedish furniture brand and design studio. Previously, he was Deputy Editor at Curbed, where he oversaw the senior staff and all special projects. A former editor at Architectural Digest and Architectural Record magazines, Asad has also guest-lectured at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and appeared on panels for Design Miami and South By Southwest, among others. In 2017, he was a FOLIO: magazine 30 Under 30 honoree.
In his conversation with Julia Gamolina, Asad talks about his media and journalism training, challenging typical design conversations, and how he pays it forward, advising those just starting their careers to trust their instincts and go after the big aspirations.
JG: Tell me about where and how you grew up, and how that planted the seeds for your career.
AS: Sure! I mostly grew up in New York City, and as a city kid, I think you’re just submerged in design and architecture very early in your life. I feel very lucky to have been spoiled in that way, since I was able to go and see every type of the most amazing architecture - turn of the century, Art Deco. It was all around, and so available.
I also come from a creative family. My mother taught art in elementary school for part of my childhood, and then went on to get a certification in tech, going into an IT direction. My dad was a musician, and then when he hunkered down to be a dad, he went into management consulting. Having those foundational experiences as creatives though was really foundational for my parents, and then for me as well.
I can relate so much on so many levels - I grew up in two different cosmopolitan environments, and my parents would always think of the most wonderful things for us to go see. That foundation is really fundamental. Tell me about the early years in design journalism for you.
I went to Columbia and studied architectural history there. I did not know that architectural history was going to be what I would focus on; I went in thinking, “I’m either going to be a creative writing major, or an architecture major.”
That’s what I grappled with before college too!
I was taking some of the required art history courses that Columbia requires all of its first year students to take, and I just fell in love with architectural history. I thought, “This is what I want to spend these years studying.” I’m so grateful that that requirement for art history existed because I would have never taken those classes that early otherwise.
That’s how I got started. I did get a little pushback from my parents. I remember my dad asking during Thanksgiving of my sophomore year what I was going to do with this degree [laughs], especially because I told him that I didn’t want to be an academic. The path for folks who were studying architectural history, unless they wanted to be in the academy, seemed pretty muddied. I did not have an answer to his question! But, now I’m glad that he asked because in retrospect, it allowed me to really think, “Okay, am I going to use this degree directly, or tangentially? Am I going to work in an auction house, will I go into curatorial work, am I going to try and be an academic after all even though I said I didn’t want to do that?” I really started thinking about what I wanted to do.
I already knew that I wanted to write - I had wanted to be a creative writing major like I mentioned, and I wrote for the literary magazine for my high school and then continued some writing things in college, so I remember thinking, “What if I could write about design?” I was already familiar with design and architecture magazines since when I was nine, my dad got me a subscription to Architectural Digest. So I knew the magazines existed, I just didn’t have a sense of the path to working for and in something like that.
“Everyone knows what a well designed space feels like, even if they can’t tell you or articulate it. If you go into a poorly designed subway station, or mall, you feel it...I feel committed to having conversations in this way that are a little bit more complicated and nuanced, and a little less about what’s happening visually.”
How did you get your start?
I decided to get an internship to learn about being in this business, so between my junior and senior years at Columbia, I got a paid internship at Architectural Record. The whole thing was eye opening for me! Working with veteran editors in architecture who wrote this incredibly storied American architecture magazine - it remains the oldest continuously published architecture magazine in the country. I learned about journalism, architectural journalism specifically, about media, and how media was shifting. Twitter was just launching then, in 2010, so there were a lot of changes around that. Finding a paid internship too, frankly, was very important, coming from a working class family. I did two summer internships with them, moving into a full time editorial position afterwards, as assistant editor.
Take me how you got to Elle Decor.
With Elle Decor specifically, I was reached out to by Stellene Volandes, our Editorial Director, last spring, in the midst of the pandemic. She had been referred to me by Kelsey Keith, who was my Editor-in-Chief at Curbed, where I had worked as the deputy editor after being at Architectural Digest. Kelsey and Stellene did not know each other, but Kelsey was one of the people on Stellene’s radar, and had told her that she was based in DC and moving to California but that Stellene should talk to me.
Stellene and I talked, and I was surprised to hear from her! I knew that Elle Decor was looking for an editor, but I had actually taken a step back from editorial and was working in business development for a Swedish home brand. I wanted to learn about the business of design, which is why I took that role after ten years as an editor. I was only vaguely thinking about returning to editorial, but then I heard from Stellene. We chatted for a few months, and a lot about what a design magazine can and should be!
What did you talk about, in that regard?
For example, when was the last time that a design magazine surprised anyone? Shaken up, stirred, or rattled? That was exciting for me, that leadership there was excited and invested in taking this chance on a design magazine, that had an incredible thirty year legacy, shifting in this new direction and tackling some big questions and conversations happening around gender and racial diversity, and representation. Also design’s impact in communities beyond just what is considered beautiful and tasteful, and interrogate taste and beauty themselves. The shelter and interior publications hadn’t really done that yet.
What should a design magazine be these days?
A design magazine should, like every magazine no matter its subject area, reflect and engage with the contemporary conversations that are happening in the world at large. Obviously a design magazine is a specific niche subject area and there are a handful of people that know it very well and that are engaged with what I call “Capital D Design” and “Capital A Architecture” at the highest levels, but ultimately, everything is designed! So in conversations about design journalism, we can lose sight, occasionally, of everyone’s interest in design whether or not they realize it.
Everyone knows what a well designed space feels like, even if they can’t tell you or articulate it. If you go into a poorly designed subway station, or mall, you feel it. There’s a viscerality to either a good experience or a bad experience with a space that is universal. So I felt like there weren’t that many design magazines having those types of conversations. I feel committed to having conversations in this way that are a little bit more complicated and nuanced, and a little less about what’s happening visually. A design magazine should reflect what the world is feeling and talking about.
Looking back a little bit again, who mentored you along the way?
One of those people was Suzanne Stephens, the deputy editor at Architectural Record. I met her when I did that first internship, and she really took me under her wing in a lot of ways. She showed me the ropes - taking me through how to fact check, what kinds of questions I should be asking architects, ways to prepare for the interview, and how to edit. Her guidance was so foundational for me. My senior year at Columbia, she also taught an architectural criticism course at Barnard, so I took that course and that academic experience with her, and to be thinking more theoretically about the function of criticism and its history, was fantastic as well.
Another person who has been fantastic was Helene Silverman, who was the Art Director at Record wehn I was there. She’s retired now, but she was one of the first Art Directors for Metropolis Magazine in the eighties! Helene was so great about showing me how to think holistically about how something lands and lives on a page, and even digitally! Having her visual mentorship, in complement to Suzanne’s was amazing.
“...when was the last time that a design magazine surprised anyone? Shaken up, stirred, or rattled?”
In turn, how do you mentor and how do you choose who you mentor?
You will note that Suzanne and Helene are both older white women who have had their fair share of struggles in this industry, and I think why they were keen to mentor me. I was a very young, black, and queer man in a space that has been incredibly white and male. I think they saw that I was enthusiastic and enjoyed talking to them - we enjoyed each other’s company beyond the work that we did together - so I learned from their experiences of being marginalized and second guessed in their careers.
For me, I have been the only black editor in most of the spaces that I worked in, and so it’s been important for me to identify other black journalists who are interested in working in design and in fashion. Even if I can’t directly give them work, I always try to connect them to someone who can, or who can introduce them to somebody else. And of course race isn’t the only metric by which I decide who I’m going to give my time to, but I always look for those that are underrepresented in our industry, whether that’s someone who is trans or also black and queer. I feel a deep responsibility to pay it forward.
In addition to your identity as a writer, editor, and Editor-in-Chief, what other identities do you hold that are significant to you? How do you then approach the integration of all of those identities into your life, and your life’s work?
Well first I feel like the identity of an Editor-in-Chief has shifted in the last ten years or so. There was an article by Vanessa Friedman, the fashion critic at the New York Times, and two other people on the fashion desk, and they interviewed tons of current and former editors in chief about the demise of the imperial editor-in-chief.
What I found interesting about the piece was that the shift is symptomatic of a larger cultural shift in that we are all less invested in the idea of a single genius, and more invested in the idea of collaboratives. I’ve seen that so much in architecture these days...
So much.
Right, starchitects are less and less lauded and their teams are more and more lauded because people are realizing the effort that it takes to get the flashy result that we all see. So anyway, I am an editor-in-chief but I really see that as being a leader! And a manager. And I take that part of my identity and responsibility so seriously.
I’m also a queer man. I say queer, not gay, because there are subtle shades in those identities - gay is often specific to sexual orientation, and queer is about gender expression and sexual orientation. As an editor-in-chief, yes I wear blazers and suits, and I have a pretty traditionally masculine way of presenting out in the world. I also have significant facial hair, I have a beard [laughs], but I often feel too that there is more space now, for leaders, to think beyond what has traditionally been deemed professional and executive-level attire. Granted we are in a creative industry, but it is shifting in other industries as well. So my queerness is something that factors in in terms of the way I move about in the world.
I’m black as well, and both of those things are very legible. If you meet me, or see me on the street, you can tell that I am queer and you know that I am black. I am very mindful about not worrying too much about how I am perceived, which is a very real challenge in this job, given that it’s a very visible and present position. But I also want to make sure that as I maintain a sense of harmony, in your question to the integration of everything, and I want to make sure that I am making choices for me. What do I want to model for myself, and what do I want to model for a person who has never seen my intersection of identities in a position like this? I want someone to be able to see someone that’s living as genuinely as they can.
“What do I want to model for myself, and what do I want to model for a person who has never seen my intersection of identities in a position like this? I want someone to be able to see someone that’s living as genuinely as they can.”
I love that so much. Living genuinely is the ultimate sign of success I think, because it’s ultimately about freedom. In your role also, how do you make sure to maintain boundaries and personal time?
I’m pretty good about that - I don’t look at email on the weekends, save for a few hours on Sunday, as that is my time to decompress and get ready for the week ahead. Anybody who has worked with me knows that when I’m on, on a Monday through Friday, and occasionally a little bit on Saturday or Sunday if there’s a photoshoot or something, I’m on, and when I’m not, I’m not.
This is also behavior I want to model for my staff, so that they know that they can separate the things that they need to. I don’t email people after 7pm, or before 8am. Maybe I’ll set an email to go out at a specific time, but for us to maintain our sense of self, it’s important for those boundaries.
With everything you just shared, what have been some of the biggest challenges throughout your career?
That’s a big question. I am lucky that this moment in media and architecture and design is happening, where there is appetite for a black editor-in-chief at companies that haven’t considered hiring them in the past, but I have run into some real discrimination and uphill battles to be taken seriously in this industry. That said, I have never suffered from imposter syndrome.
Where does that come from?
I think I came to the realization that if I’m going to be second-guessed in the world, let me not be the person that’s second-guessing myself at home. Let’s go into these rooms and conversations from a place of confidence, and lead the charge that way! It can be tough, but I found that approach really useful, for any situation.
I’ve also noticed that as an openly gay professional, as an openly queer professional, I am also benefitted from a lot of previous trailblazing. Another mentor of mine, the CEO of Phaidon, Keith Fox, said to me that it wasn’t common to find openly gay executives in our area of work, at least not when he was my age. So all of those things have been challenges for sure, but also frankly coming from a working middle-class family life presents its own challenges, not for me and my life necessarily, but for the assumptions that people make of me or my background, or my level of access or privilege. Media continues to be such a privileged arena, and to break into it at the highest level, you typically have to have immense financial support. Junior editor salaries are not conducive to living in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York. So its been a challenge to get people to recognize that my context was a little different. I did not have the same level of financial support as my peers.
Me too. That’s a big thing people don’t really talk about either. Who is an architect that you admire? Who is an architect that is a woman you admire?
I've always admired the work of established modernists like Kazuyo Sejima and Billie Tsien. I'm a sucker for well-executed, warm minimalism--and both have a real knack for material palettes.
Lately, I've been loving the work of Nina Cooke John, who I know has been interviewed by Madame Architect in the past. She was one of two architects who co-led the development of a "virtual concept house" under the banner of the Black Artists and Designers Guild, and with support from Elle Decor, Town & Country, House Beautiful, and Veranda magazines at Hearst. Nina's studio, Studio Cooke John, was also added to Elle Decor's A-List in 2021, our annual survey of exciting top talent in residential interiors, architecture, and landscape design.
Wrapping up now, what’s the best advice you’ve gotten along the way?
Don't be too influenced by what styles are trending or — and I know this is ironic coming from me — what you're seeing in magazines or online. You know what works well and looks good. Trust those instincts.
What advice do you have for those starting their careers?
Not to get too woo-woo, but the best general career advice I ever got was from my mother: "If it's for you, it's already yours." It's a good mantra for those moments when imposter syndrome creeps in or when you're going after something big.