What’s Happening: The voyeuristic obsession with peering into celebrity homes is reaching a zenith. Has it become unhealthy?

The Download: In the late ‘90s, MTV show creator Nina L Diaz brainstormed ideas to give the network’s viewers more insight into the lives of their favorite artists à la Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The concept for Cribs was born, but the network was hesitant to pull the trigger. “We were told that no one would entertain the idea of letting us into their homes,” Diaz later said to EW.

But her unshakeable belief turned Cribs into a smash hit, offering never-before-seen glimpses inside the over-the-top lifestyles of the TRL generation—even if they skewed lowbrow and stretched the truth. Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s episode sprung their own series, and it’s hard to picture Keeping Up With the Kardashians succeeding without the foundation laid by Cribs.

The MTV staple offered its fair share of unforgettable pop culture moments over its decade-long run, but went off the air in 2009 as the Great Recession soured viewers on unabashed maximalism. More than a decade later, even as rents skyrocket, young people wrestle with housing insecurity, and class divides are increasingly scrutinized, our collective appetite for celebrity home tours has only grown more fervent.

Architectural Digest, whose Open Door video series debuted in 2012, now holds the crown as the go-to purveyor for the genre, patience-testing and painfully staged as it may be. The most recent edition, in which Lily Allen and David Harbour tour their colorful Brooklyn townhouse designed by Billy Cotton, has already amassed five million views in less than two weeks.

Open Door’s success is twofold: Condé Nast is doing everything it can to cater to a younger audience more likely to open YouTube or TikTok than a glossy magazine packed with antique chandeliers and stuffy pieds-à-terre. And ever since the pandemic necessitated remote work, places of residence have adopted newfound significance.

“Homes became the spaces from which many people worked, and for public figures this often meant giving interviews from their homes which were intensely scrutinized and enjoyed,” Dr. Jessica Martin, a sociologist at the University of Leeds, tells Dazed. “Home ownership is becoming increasingly unlikely for more and more young people, so the escapism of witnessing someone with an unlimited budget for renovation and interior design can be alluring.” Did we mention that Cribs is back?

The interest has intensified so much that journalist Jess Cartner-Morley argues Architectural Digest has usurped Vogue’s long-held position as the ultimate cover story. Forget the velvet rope—celebrities can reach the “zenith of the zeitgeist” with their velvet sofa. High production values and A-list subjects amp up Open Door’s rewatchability—who wouldn’t delight in seeing Dakota Johnson fawn over two giant bowls of limes in her relentlessly green kitchen?

But astute observers have noted the series masquerades as celebrity real estate marketing. In 2021, Vice found one-third of its episodes either “coincide with or predate the home’s active real estate listing.” That may explain why Vanessa Carlton’s SoHo loft was eerily empty.

Home tours may indeed quench an aspirational thirst, but rarely do they reinforce a healthy image of everyday life. According to architecture critic Kate Wagner, they’re just plain boring. Such “house porn”—bespoke single-family homes that seem to exist in an apolitical vacuum—is “so far from my personal reality and the realities of others, it may as well be alien,” she writes in Azure. “The purpose of these glossy houses is to showcase the architect’s skill in making buildings as much as the client’s skill in spending money.” Rarely does the media criticize these homes either—unless they uncannily resemble Instagram ad carousels. Or when Dakota Johnson admits she’s actually allergic to limes.

In Their Own Words: “It seems clear that those houses, clean, faultless, with no dust of time, no traces of life, no clothes lying on chairs, no books open, have been anesthetized to appear aesthetic,” author Emanuele Quinz writes for Apartamento in an essay called “Haunted Houses.” “In the photos on glossy paper, the inhabitants, smiling, often barefoot to indicate the intimacy and hygiene of the aseptic space in which they evolve, appear as strangers. Intruders in their own concept of happiness. That is why these houses are not only all kitsch, but also, if you think about it, rather uncanny.”

Surface Says: We’re clearly not the biggest fans of celebrity home tours, but we’ll gladly cheer on Julia Fox as she guides us through her cluttered Manhattan one-bedroom, crumb-eating mice and all.

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Creative director Hanako Maeda’s exploration of femininity is steeped in pop-punk influences from her youth.

Runway Redux is a fashion column in which we ask a designer to reflect on a new collection; this week, Surface reports from behind the scenes at New York Fashion Week.

Name: Hanako Maeda (@adeam).

Describe this collection in three words: Punk, powerful, kawaii.

Which look is your favorite? I love look two [a black, puff-sleeve gown with ruffled train and plunge neckline] worn by Yuka, a Japanese model and also my personal friend. It captures a bit more of the Japanese aesthetic and feels more kawaii and Gothic Lolita [the name for Japanese style that draws influences from Victorian and Rococo fashion].

What was the inspiration? My youth; shopping and spending time in Harajuku in the late ‘90s and early 2000s and seeing all the girls’ dresses.

Designing Delicious is produced in partnership with Dorsia, a members-only platform with access to reservations at the most in-demand restaurants in New York, Miami, and soon L.A.

After sparking a friendship in the kitchen at Tel Aviv’s HaSalon, Daniel Soskolne and Loren Abramovitch branched out on their own to launch the private chef company LEV, named after the Hebrew word for “heart.” Pairing the culinary traditions of the global Jewish diaspora with Palestinian influences, the duo’s melting-pot cuisine has earned them a devoted following.

Whether cooking for an event in a Brooklyn warehouse or a private residence, LEV’s site-specific approach means the recipes are perpetually changing, though the philosophy remains the same: their food is imbued with simplicity, heritage, and emotion. “The food is going to be vibrating, we’re not coming with recipes,” Soskolne says. “Whatever you’re gonna taste and see today, it’s first-time made. Yes, we have the bread, but it’s never gonna be served like it was the time before. This is maybe our signature thing—we never do the same thing twice. And when we do, we get depressed and we change.”

As LEV prepares to kick off a two-month residency (March 2–May 2) at Bistrot Leo, the French brasserie on the ground floor of New York’s Sixty Soho hotel, Dorsia went behind the scenes for an exclusive preview with Soskolne, Abramovitch, and sous chef Alix Ferguson in the latest installment of Designing Delicious.

Last week, Google Pixel and SN37 toasted the 25 artists of “Creator Labs: Season 7,” a group photography exhibition debuting at SN37’s Chelsea gallery and shot entirely on the Google Pixel. Following the exhibition opening, the participating artists gathered their friends for jalapeño margaritas and danced until the early hours at an after-party at Boom (FKA the Boom Boom Room) DJ’d by Myles Loftin.

When was it? Feb. 9

Where was it? Gallery SN37 and Boom, New York

Who was there? Andre D. Wagner, Gottmik, Liana Satenstein, Natalia Mantini, Lawrence Agyei, Steven Chaiken, Texas Isiah, and more.

When the time came for Holly Hunt to bring the flagship showroom experience to California, the high-end furniture purveyor and design brand set its sights on L.A.’s Sycamore District. Nestled at the foot of the Hollywood Hills, the neighborhood attracts a creative-minded crowd with its presence of world-class art galleries such as Jeffrey Deitch, Tanya Bonakdar, and Regen Projects. Design heavyweights Apparatus, Ralph Pucci, and Galerie Ground are also nearby.

Before long, the brand eyed transforming an expansive warehouse at 945 North Highland Avenue into a “house within a house”—or, more aptly, two villas within a warehouse. The flagship space now showcases furniture, lighting, and wallcoverings from its eponymous collection and esteemed roster of collaborators like Draga & Aurel, Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert, and Assemblage.

When: Until July 16

Where: Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York

What: Inspired by research on rare images of intimate pairs in the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art’s collection, the queer photographer’s arresting new series explores their own deep bonds and emotional entanglements while paying homage to their forebears. Energetic connections between past lovers and current partners are tenderly exposed, capturing the unspoken understandings of how they see and are seen while showing how we’re all mirrored refractions of one another.

In her landmark speech, “Ain’t I a Woman,” abolitionist and orator Sojourner Truth spoke to the humanity of Black women at the predominantly white Women’s Rights Convention in 1851. Exemplifying the hardships she had endured while enslaved and afterward, Truth rhetorically asked, “Ain’t I woman?” throughout her speech to assert the rights of Black women within the movement. Now, artist-activist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter brings this fundamental question to the halls of the Brooklyn Museum with a wrenching exhibition that opened in late January.

In a 15-minute documentary, also titled Ain’t I a Woman, the Philadelphia-based artist uses an original hip-hop composition under the name Isis Tha Saviour to underscore the through-lines between mass incarceration and slavery. She recreates the harrowing experience of being shackled and denied medical care during 43 hours of labor as an expectant mother while in prison. Asked by Baxter, the question of “Ain’t I Woman” demands better from a broader reproductive justice movement that has largely ignored the implications of mass incarceration on bodily autonomy.

Studio Plow is a San Francisco–based architecture and design studio known for an aesthetic that’s restrained, yet warm and soulful. Each project is seen as a new opportunity for discovery, resulting in completely bespoke design. Working in collaboration with clients, the studio crafts a narrative that uncovers the soul of each space, mapping its full potential.

Surface Says: Studio Plow excels at creating expressive interiors with a strong sense of place. The soul of each space shines through every commission and is contextualized by Plow’s dedication to creating interiors that perfectly balance contemporary design and warmth.

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