The Beginning of "Living" with Isolde Motley and Gael Towey

Martha Stewart Living Magazine. In the winter of the first issue of Martha Stewart Living Magazine hit the news fans, we chose to focus on eight key content areas cooking, entertaining, gardening, decorating, celebrating holidays, housekeeping, crafting, and collecting. As the years came and went, the mission stayed the same, to teach and to inspire, to educate and suspire living as we know it around here put an emphasis on beautiful visuals carefully

developed by our editors and art directors and stylists. And today with me sitting right in the same room, and I was so excited as old and Motley, our first editor in chief of Martha Stewart Living Magazine and our first art director, Gail Howe, so welcome both of you. It is so nice to be sitting here reminiscing, and

I'm probably gonna cry during this interview. I'm almost crying right there you are, and we are emotional because what we created was something I think very very special that hit accord and hit a nerve in the American woman's life.

And uh and I really I really feel that way because the response has been over the years and now the magazine is thirty one years old and we started it, as I said, have the first issue right here with me, and uh, there I am smiling sitting at Turkey Hill Road on my porch with a basket of this and that it was a Christmas issue and for me easy

to do right. Christmas was just part of our DNA, even at that time, because I had been catering and cooking for other people and entertaining and what I thought was missing in the on the news stand at that time was a magazine really devoted to the homemaker. And I had to find like minded people. It was very important. And after we found the publisher, which was also quite a shore, we'll talk about that. Let me introduce you,

Gail Howie. How are you. I'm very well and I'm very delighted to be here because I love talking about the olden days, the wonderful, wonderful, magical, creative olden days, and they were certainly some of the most creative days I've ever spent in my life. Well, I'm so happy to hear you say that, because I feel the same way. And it is getting weepy. I promised not to get weepy. This is much sterner. And she's she's really, she really ran the show in the in the in the early

days of the tas absolute nonsense. No, you did. You ran the show. I was off, you know, gallivanting, doing all the photo shoots and and all, and you stayed home and really took care of the text. No, no errors, no errors. In those early issues, I don't remember correction

for I hardly remember any corrections in that magazine. Well, it was so important to get it right because we thought that if people if there was a mistake and a recipe, it would be such a waste of somebody's time and money and that was just not fair, exactly, and and they would then lose faith in your expertness. And uh, and I always, I've always said since day one, that that authenticity and expertness is really important if you're

going to be the teacher. And this magazine was posed as the teacher for the American homemaker, and it was for women basically, but a lot of men picked it up. And now with the with a two male household, more men are are are reading these magazines than ever before. Um and so it's really a male female audience. And just it was an incredible effort. And do you remember our first office is let's describe, Oh God, Time Inc. Put us. It was at the forty six floor floor.

It was the floor right above the heating and air conditioning floor of the Time Warner building on sixth Avenue, and the floor when the heat was on was boiling hot. It was so homember. So my feet were swollen. I had to take my shoes off because the floor was so high, and the carpets were I think what they gave us the office is the dirtiest carpets in the entire tobacco smelling, an old, smokey office that nobody wanted

any longer. And we got it. But it was ours, and it was Time Inc. Which was a male, male orient, male oriented, but they were very good at what they did. They just were not quite sure what to do with us. Every office when we moved in had a dictionary and a tessaurus, but no phone. Do you know what they left us alone? They did They didn't know what they didn't. They would come around periodically and I would say, I'm so sorry, it's already gone to the printer, or I'm

so sorry it's already been shot. We can't shoot it again, or whatever, it's too late. Well, do you remember the story when I was looking for the money, When I was looking for the partner UM, I first went to sign new House and he gave me the money to create the prototype. And I did that with roche rochow You, Dell and Doug person. Remember Rochelle was the art director of Self magazine at the time, and and Churchen and Doug had his own company as a design and they

helped me create a prototype UM which was interesting. It was a July issue. It had a story about straw straw hats, yes, and about a bicycle decorated. That was the issue. And then so I said, well, what are you gonna call this magazine? And I thought, oh, you know Martha Stewart something or other. He said, oh, no, it can't be that it has to be condist something or other because it's my magazine. So he sent us on our merry way, and then I went, did I

ever tell you that? You know? I was working for Alex Lieberman at the time, because I was the art director at House and Garden right, and I report to Alex the creative director, the creative director of all Conde Nasket, who was one of the meanest people I've ever met in my life. But anyway, he was drakonian um. But he would come down and he knew that you and I were friends and that we knew each other and had met at Clarkson Potter Publishers. And he said, you know,

I don't want to do this magazine. We can't have a magazine with an editor's name on it. All of the other editors at Conde Nast would want their name. Our magazines are kind to be Diane of Briel and Vogue, and it would have to be. But I think that he thought you were too strong for him. He was a maniacal control freak. Particularly he didn't like that's very flattering. Thank you, You're quite welcome. I would love to be thought for Oxy because he was scary. He was scary scary.

So we took the prototype then too, Oh my gosh. I took it to Rupert Murdoch and I first met with Rupert's team. They said, oh you didn't that was fabulous. I got. I got to go and meet Rupert. He was still married to his first wife. He was extremely attractive. Second wife. Second which one was his second wife? Okay, you keep track of that, well I can't. I don't know. I don't keep tracking things like that. But he was still married to that beautiful Anna, the mother of his

first children. Right, and there's an older sister. Oh, there's an older sister. They may have the Succession family. Okay, alright, so then then there is another another family before Anna, and before Wendy, of course, I mean before Wendy Wendy Dong. Anyway, that goes on and on. But I go and meet with the team. The team was extremely interested in the magazine.

But then incomes Rupert, and I make my prison to and Rupert when he came in the room, silence, just like in the Succession silence, and they all stood up and it sort of bowed to him. I mean, this is even his general counsel and I couldn't believe what's going on here. I mean, this guy is magnetic, you know, and he's strong, but and he is a billionaire in blah blah blah. But but he's Rupert and uh, he's a magazine guy. This is before he became Fox News

and everything else, and um. And they looked at the magazine, the prototype, and they said, you know, this is really this is really inviting, and this is really interesting and we would love to do it, but we're selling our magazines. We don't believe in the future of the printed word. That's what he told me this, And they said, we suggest that was they were just a just sold seventeen magazine, are they We're going to sell it? And they knew

what they were doing. They were they were getting out of the printage magazine, going into TV and more into the newspaper world. So um. So then I said, I said, okay, well what should I do? I mean, I hear I have this fantastic idea, and Rupert said, I take it to time, And so I took it to time. I never knew that story. And so I met with Red Brock and Chris Mirror and who else was there a

few other guys. We went to Caravelle Restaurant, which was their lunch room basically, And Caraville is owned by friends of mine who are now the parents of Sweet Green. Do you know that? No, I didn't know that. Oh yeah, their son started Sweet Green and they all became billionaires because every they cut. The convoluted history is really kind of interesting. And anyway, so I take the prototype to lunch.

I showed the whole thing at Caraville Restaurant, which is a little bit um and you're not supposed to take out papers and stuff with those fancy French lunch places. But I did it anyway, and the boys um looked at it and they said, geez, this is fantastic. He said, but this is the Julyisha, What would you do next July? It looks like you covered fourth of July here. And I said, gentlemen, you just don't understand what creativity is.

We have the best team, the best ideas. I could go on for Fourth of July for at least thirty years, which is exactly what we did, right. And we never repeated a recipe. We never repeated anything. Um, maybe we decorated a bicycle started like a bicycle we did twenty five years ago, but not really. I mean, creativity is boundless, and and and living. I kept saying to them, living is limitless, Living is limitless. Were you know, into the second or third millennial of human life here of productive

human life, and it's limitless. It changes all the time. So anyway, they bit and they bought, they bought and became our partners and they and they let me start to hire the team. And that's when we got together in big time. Now, you were at Clarkson Potter at the time. Then I was in House and Garden. You were still at House and Garden. Oh my gosh, I thought you were you had already moved over to books, but the books books came came first. So that's what happened. Okay.

I was trying to figure out that that chronology, and you were you were also doing right doing books. So what were you doing at that particular time? I was doing your I was trying to get you to finish the Old House book. Oh, the new Old House, the new Old House, and you were really really late, as with your deadlines. That turned out to be a really good book. It was a great book, and you know people are buying that book now. I still have it. I Sews the House. If you don't have that book,

you should look for it. It's on It's on Amazon. But it's a good book because it really told you how to restore and rebuild an old house. And I did it with my brother George right, who was a contractor. It was so great. So um so is Older came as editor in chief. I didn't know how to make a magazine and is Older knew how to edit. She knew how to get writers to write, and she knew how to put together an issue. She knew what a table of contents was. And you worked in magazines before,

so you had a magazine. I had been a magazine editor until I had a baby, and I thought, well, magazines are too time consuming. I'll do books instead because there's never really a deadline, which turned out to be true. So I did magazines for crib into the office. I bought a porter crib for the office because so many of us had babies, and I had the worst fight with the time Inc. Accounting people because they said it was a personal expense, and I kept explaining that no,

we all have babies. We need, we need somewhere to put them more. Though I did on that hot floor, they were at least warm. Yeah, you know. And but we learned how to We learned, and you put together an amazing team of creatives. Gail was like a magnet for creativity, and um and so many of those they're still all our friends, they are still all we work with. What I wanted to ask you of your of the pot who was the first photographer that we really really

clicked with? You know? I think it was Bill Alebrono Wits and and can I tell my photography story? So you know, I had been at House and Garden and I'd been making friends with photographers and making relationships with photographers. And when I left there to come to work for you, and at time inc um I we had to get busy right away. We started August one. We had our first magazine on the news stand, the Christmas issue on November twelve, which is an unheard of short period it

of time. But we had to get busy right away. So I immediately started calling photographers and they all said to me, I can't work for you, I can't work for you, I can't work for you. And Finally somebody said, Gail, you have been You and Martha have been embargoed by Conde Nast. They sent us all a letter, none of us are allowed to work for you. Well, I was terrified because here I am, I had that responsibility, but I wasn't terrified because I knew there was other talent

all around us. And we ended up hiring people who were our friends from books. Chris Baker, who you worked with. I worked with Chris so much, and and you did one of your at least one, maybe two of your books with Chris Baker, um Maria Blado, who was Elizabeth Schene who was shooting your garden book, and that we all worked on in between issues, and they hoped change the look of the the story to the story was fantastic. And then all those other photographers ultimately were allowed to

come back and work with us. There was also the problem of photographers being snotty, and there was the one who said, I don't want to photograph a housewife in Connecticut. Who is that? Do you remember that? Oh? You know, I think people really underestimated us in the beginning. A lot of people, not just the photographers, but I didn't know it was going to look completely different from anything

that we were. The modern Remember how we used to talk about the television program called thirty something that was all the rage at the time, and it was very modern and it was aesthetically modern and good looking, and we really thought, well, if that can be six testful, we can completely change the aesthetics of the Woman's magazine. Well, when we put the I mean this first issue it

was Christmas. But in this issue we have not only a stencil for fabulous stars and moons, we have full page picture of three forks and a butter knife, but the most beautiful forks and butter knife, and and the stenciled tablecloth that we made for the table in silver silver stensil. People went nuts over these craft ideas. Crafting became like a rage, and home crafting became a rage. Making fantastic food that looked like it was prepared at Lagrani in New York City. Look at this soup, the

pasta homemade pasta carrot and um. Let me see red pepper pasta and basil pasta cut into stars, served in a very fabulous boullion. But Martha, you changed the way recipes were div eloped and photographed. You did it like you were doing your books, And I think that's one of the reasons we were able to do the magazine the first issue so quickly. But but other magazines didn't do the process that you created. You created a new

process for for recipes. I did. And it was like one person or two people in the kitchen, not a gotten, you know, giant crew. Each person was responsible for doing something like I remember doing this whole thing with one other person. She was phenomenal and fearless, totally fearless. In the beginning, Alexis is doing the Oh look at this. This was my favorite dessert, sponge sugar with a trial,

fabulous caramelized tweel at homemade ice cream, so elegant. But then I think Alexis isn't here doing her her wrapping paper. Oh yes, which was on which was on browncraft paper, browncraft paper and paint. That changed the whole idea of wrapping for people. You can Oh, there she is, looking amazing, making a mess in my on my cencil floors in my hall away, making the most beautiful wrapping paper. And there she is, I mean, and it's and the the wrappings were gorgeous. But this is what we did. We

we kind of we didn't internalize it at all. We kind of expanded the whole idea of making doing creating at home in a very sophisticated way, but not so sophisticated that it couldn't do it to everybody. Now, Remember, I think this was like an eye opener to people. It really was. And didn't we create this magazine on a Macintosh? None of us had ever used a computer

for layout and photography and all of that. I don't know if you used a computer used for I remember I bought an ID in two, so it was very important for me to be totally modern and technologically savvy. And you guys lived up to the desire because you really, you really, it was so exciting. It was remember your name, Tammy Tamara Tomorrow, who is married to Jeff Jervis, who found it Entertainment Weekly. But I didn't find that out

until later. But she sat up the whole system and it was hilarious because we had hard disks that we passed around. Oh God, that was the end, you know, you finished something and hand the physical disk to somebody else to do that. Nobody had done that before with an illustrated magazine of this magnitude. Nobody even there was no Wired magazine at the time. That mean that came later. But but other other Vogue and I came from Conde NaSTA.

We were doing paste up, we were doing photostats and paste up, and that we should be so proud of the fact that absolutely, and that was so innovative and so fantastic. And this cookies for children, I mean, here we have children making sophisticated, delicious cookies. There's my little friend Monica pastor Neck and all these little neighbor kids came in. I remember, and my um my nephew is in this in this issue. In this issue, I think

they borrowed and sold children from everywhere. And the cookies are so delicious, the recipes and beautiful looking. Well see that's the thing about the recipes. This is what I recall. There would be a recipe that would be developed, and that person who was developing it, you and Laura in the in those days, would be responsible for doing it again for the camera. And so there was no you know, none of the things, none of the tricks of food style.

From the beginning, I said, there's going to be no figuri The food is going to look just like it looks if you made it yourself. And there is no figuery, there's no oil, glazes, ice cream made that mashed potatoes, masotto cream, no nothing fake at all, and you can and you can eat it right after you shoot at you, which we did, which we did because otherwise we were starving. But remember, yeah, remember shooting in Florida in the Keys, the little children with ice cream because it was real

ice cream. It just kept Meanwhile, everybody dresses, you know, that's I think that's in this issue. That's why I brought this issue because that Florida shoot was I was pregnant with August and I brought Maud with me. Maud was like two or three. I still on issue number one, but oh there's there's Kirk Sophie. Oh yeah, and we had we made all of the of the dresses for the children. I mean, that's the kind of extent that we and I learned something from you on this one, Martha.

These are all these beautiful ice creams that we shot. I think Davison star shot that, but you, you, you made the most beautiful scoop and then each one was frozen, so that when it came to the camera, which we did not shoot in Florida. The kids we shot in Florida solouettes, Oh my gosh, so fabulous. So you have to look at all your early magazines of Martha Stewart living. I mean, I love that layout. That was so pretty and they were getting their chocolate all over there. Look

at that. You can see the big splash of chocolate on the little girl's art. And we just kept shooting out. Uh but you know what the other story that was so fun and on that remember the storm. Oh yes, we had this idea of creating this romantic dinner on the beach and we put I don't know, four or six posts in the ground. All of this this was in the Key No No, that island later that this is the one. You were standing up on a on a on a ladder and I was on another ladder

and we building that building that beautiful, beautiful. So it's this kind of drapy romand to having a fire permit building fires anyway on hoping that the fire department wouldn't catch on. So there was a storm coming and all of a sudden, on the horizon we saw this like black cloud coming and the wind was coming up, and we all looked at you, like, what are we supposed to do now? And you yelled to us keep going, keep going. Only I knew it was our only chance.

And that's it. That's the shot. Vicky Incredible immediately put all of her equipment in the car because it was about to pour. The cloud moved over us, poured poured rain, but it was and and then behind the rain cloud was the sunset, the sunset. She ran out of the car with her camera and she got it. It was we had I would say, maybe ten minutes of light and then the rest of it we had to fake the next day because we totally lost drama and nobody was executed. We were so we were so dedicated to

getting that picture. And this is before we were doing really serious television. This is before we were synergizing with all the other signs of media that we got into. But we knew that what we were creating a day in and day out was evergreen material that is as good today as it was then. And uh and that has been proven. That has been proven because these recipes in are in many of our books. Many of these the things that we created for the magazine ended up

in a book or on television. Uh. But it never felt like we were reusing and reusing. It always felt it was so experimental. It was and its And so this is Past Christian and the same issue. I mean, this is kind of an extraordinary istue because this is also an incredible story. We went shrimping, and we were there on the last day that the shrimp boats were allowed to go out, but there was like a thunderstorm, and so we couldn't shrimp. But then they said, we'll

take you out. We can fake it. But here's beautiful Diro Diro Pucket, who was one of one of our big helpers in the early days of Inspiration. She had a beautiful house in Past Christian. If you know that part of Louisiana, you'll you'll know that Past Christiane was completely destroyed by Hurricane was that Katrina? Katrina? That's right, Katrina that destroyed New Orleans. Her house, her found generations, a big house. All that was left of that house

where the front stairs. Remember the picture I do, And we have a picture of Deerro and her husband sitting on their front steps, three stone steps and nothing behind them. A three story monster house was blown away. Do you remember why we were shooting everything in the south for the summer issue is because it was the middle of winter. Because we had just started, we had to shoot everything

in the wrong seasons. So that Christmas issue we did in August, and I'm not sure I've ever and then the summer and we we did a lot of crazy stuff. And I always said, well, I've had three Christmas this year because I would do a Christmas in August for the magazine, and I would do a Christmas for television, then I would do another another Christmas for somebody else, and then by the time Christmas came, you always wanted to travel, because that's right. That's when I started taking

the kids on those big trips around the wall. You know, that's right, because it was a getaway from redecorating again. But um, But so getting back to the photographers and that first issue you mentioned Bill Lebrono Wits. I just got a nice letter from Bill just this week, and he's not living in Bedford any longer, you know, up to where their skihouse was, and he's and he's anxious to come and have dinner and talk somewhere because he was fondly remembering all those early days used to these

Comrads catalogs. And Laura Harrigan, who was our one of our designers, new Bill and she was working freelance on the Conrads catalog, and so she introduced us to Bill, and Bill came over and showed us his portfolio, and I just loved the way he made things like Conrad's furniture look active. You know, the cover had somebody carrying the sofa into the house instead of like the more typical way of doing things. You know, he was able to get movement into things that were normally shot in

a very static way. But that that was one of the things that was really different. One of the early rules that was in the first outline was every room needs to look as the family has just left it or is about to come in. So glosses need to have water in them, pillows need to have a little bit of a dent in them, and people like Bill understood that. So everything didn't look like a cattle, nothing

looked like a catalog. Everything looked and it didn't look like other magazines overly perfected like Gourmet in those days, or Architectural Digest, in those days that like weird lighting, and we were using natural light, which you did in your books, which all of our photographers cared about. Natural light made everything look more delicious and more real, and it meant you had to work really fast, and I think that probably helped. We got a lot done every

single day, a lot, and we published everything. I mean I came from a house and garden where they had mountains and mountains of unpublished material. You know, they just had files and files and files, and we said about doing a lineup. We shot the lineup, We published the lineup. Every cent had to go on the page because they gave us so little money. Um well, sing back, that was a lot of money in those days. Because now the budgets are like one can true, I know what

they used to be. And when I think of the amazing upholstery and the amazing amazing coverlets and pillows, throw pillows that we were able to to make for the magazine for those photos, you can't do that now. No, But compared to everybody else, the cost per page was so low. But I was proud of that. Yeah, I was very proud that we had a budget and we stuck to it well we didn't have an option and yet, but it made us even more creative and I really

I was very very proud of that all through the years. Well, and we were doing that stuff ourselves. We were sewing things, we were doing the painting, the painting on the you know, converting a dresser and doing the painting and changing the knobs. And one of my favorites was that was that French designer who did the painted furniture. Who was that French designer that did the beautiful buchanicles botanicles on on a creamy background. Right, you know, my sister bought that from

the magazine. She did that story. She has it, she does, she still has it in her dining room. But that was such a beautiful story. That idea came from that wonderful Belgian designer who did that kind of thing in the nineties. But it was essentially like a Dave Coupas. Yeah, it was so beautiful and we got inspired by so many different things all over the world. When we did

the Reads, Reads, I just loved. We decided we were going to do not only a story about Reads of all the states and the magazine, but we created a book and Hannah worked on that. Remember with the cranberry.

I will never forget that. And you know that she got Remember when everybody got sick and we arrived that they were shooting the magnolia, and then they all of them went on shoots afterwards, and I met Hannah and Aspen and she could barely talk, and she ended up with a terrible she was horribly sick, and she had to go on oxygen. And because they were breathing in the greenhouses, the pesticides that they were they were I think spraying all the magnolia tree seedlings or something like that. Yeah,

but they lived. All of them are live. And you know what they used to pass are great. Here's the primary reason. Look at that. Here it is. Yeah, I love that pary breath. If you make it, you're guaranteed to have pricked fingers because it's a half of a sharp wooden toothpick in each cranberry that then sticks into the cranberry and also sticks into the styrofoam wreath. Afraid, but you won't die. You won't die. Probably important to

know or something in your fingerships. But but this was handmade. Reads the whole the whole beginning of the wreath craze started in this magazine, and we did start a lot of crazes that we did. We did so the whole idea of handmade. I mean, I think that um we were responsible for. I mean, d I Y obviously was invented before that, but we made it so beautiful and

so creative. And I think you know remember how we would get thousands of letters every week and they all started with dear Martha, and it was really about how this person who made this cake or made this dresser or what they're reach the million litter mark and Kim Dumer and her little team and oh and you remember Susie Wall. She was head of communications and she got all the litters and Kim Dumer was her assistant, and

now Kim Dumer is still working for us. And uh, it was it was incredible reading those letters, month after months, millions of letters. Well in the letters they would always start dear Martha, but the next sentence was my neighbors, my family call me the Martha of wherever. And then there would be a lot of the time there'd be a polaroid of something they've done, which is just lovely.

But it was because there was this huge hole in the market between the fancy decorating magazines that like Architectural Digest or House and Garden that assumed you had money and a decorator um and the magazines that were for people who didn't have a lot of money but assumed you had no taste. So, Martha, you made it possible for people to respect and still make things. Well, you assumed that people who didn't have money still wanted things

to be beautiful. Well that's the whole kark star to make a sheaf of wheat look like that with a golden rib, so beautiful, so utterly beautiful. And this magnolia wreath with the and I made this one for the White House to remember. I made that giant for Mrs Clinton, and I went and I hung it on the porch of the White House on the seconds A great photograph. That is a great photograph. And we we decorated parts of the White House. We did a tree, we did

the Vice President's house. We did so much in other places, and we photographed them and recorded them and we had the best time. We did have a good time. Didn't you do a gingerbread house at the White House? Or gingerbread house off the White House. No I did that. I did. We did for television Abbey. I didn't know that. And the whole cast of Downton Abbey came to the magazine to see the gingerbread. It was incredible. Good lord, Yeah, we've done a lot of great things. Lot. Oh here

I am. I think this is a Ralph Floren jacket. I was looking for. That is my Ralph Floren jacket. And now is that the second Christmas issues? The second Christmas issue December nine? And there I am in front of my porch doors on Turkey Hill Road. Who knew I would be living next door to Ralph Lauren here in Bedford. That's right, And I still have that jacket. I saved it. Oh yeah, I saved that. You look great in that jacket. That's so beautiful. And again, uh,

talk about variety. There's nothing repetitive in this December from the year before. Every single idea is new and different. We introduced people to stationary too beautiful, how to embost your own stationary, how to how to create stationary that looks like it was made at the most extraordinary engravers. But we also show engraves stationary so that you are educated in the art of fine stationary and the cheeses and the silver where, oh, the whole collecting thing. Maria company,

that's Maria. Yeah, you can tell him Maria photograph. She's now making the most beautiful pottery. Can imagine. Look at that beautiful photograph. Do you have that hanging in your house? I have I I have two pictures from that shoot hanging or what's actually they're sort of propped up. But this is another art. You know. The whole thing about being inspired by antique photography was a was a big deal for people like Mario or Victor Schreeger or John

doug Dale. I mean, remember John, And this is this is the this is the Chicken story photographed by Victor Schreeger.

And it's one of my favorite stories to tell because I went to an exhibition of Victor's photographs at a gallery and he was shooting wild birds and he was holding He created this thing with a hand's backdrop with a hole in it and then a slit and you'd put your hand through the hole to hold the legs of the bird, and then you'd have a kind of silhouetted picture of the bird and it would be you'd be able to see all the details of the bird

because there was no background. And that's the way they used to take pictures of chickens in catalogs in order to sell the chickens inform catogs being photographed at the Turkey Turkey Hill. And so I arrived. Hannah had been up all night. Hannah was hand Melman was our stylist, our wonderful styles, dying these backdrops in coffee in her bathtub. I thought you were going to say, dyeing the pens. So Nasy was washing the chickens in a big um tub,

you know, a galvanized or an enamel tub um. And then the chickens were being blown dry with a hair dryer on a very very long extension cord so that they were all nice and fluffy for the picture. And so and Martha was like, yay, go go to the palid pool and get me a good looking chicken. I had never I thought to myself, Okay, this is the first time as an art director I've ever had to go running after chickens. And then this is one of

my favorite covers. I don't have that jacket from Martha, Yeah, no, from the shoot. Oh you do know I did, you did. I wore it for years. Yeah, this is a great dress as it was not as it was an amid though it definitely wasn't it was. We'll argue Jay Crewe, I think, but it's the most natural, completely no makeup, just standing there, you know, just absolutely beautiful, no hairdresser. Yeah, and if I had makeup, I applied it myself. But that was a beautiful pallid play meeting Chicken Palace. I'm

looking at a picture here of this. This is one of our first inspired inspired stories about a wedding m hm and Christmas wedding that was your house son, lillipan Lain. This, yes, and this an amazing story photographed by oh John Dugdale talking about and John John Dugdale developed a terrible eyesight problem where he went went blind. And he is a photographer with the finest, finest sense of of imagery. I

mean nobody had a better sense of imagery. And he could see less and less and less, and he still takes photographs. He's still he just had another show. He uses a large format eight by ten some of us photographs and we were just looking up, looking up at the chag for the chag sail. I wasn't going to sell his photographs, but somebody looked them up. There are thousands and thousands of tars. Good. I'm happy that, I'm

very happy. But this image of the Stephanotis bouquet, this is a Stephanotas bouquet, and I threaded the Stephanotis flowers on ribbon so that long streamers of Stephanotis blossoms. Nobody, nobody could even Meanwhile, the picture is like three by five. I know, nobody could even imagine such a thing. And that started my really really serious interest in weddings. Okay,

as if Living wasn't enough, weddings came second. And this was in nine five years after the birth of Martha Stewart Living magazine, we decided to do Martha Stewart Living Weddings. And this was again, I mean, there were other magazines devoted to weddings and brides, but this was again taking the same philosophy of educating and inspiring the many many brides in America. At that time there were about two million, five hundred thousand brides and getting married every year. And

this bookay, remember that Bouquet, Okay, you made it. I stripped I put them all together, hoping that I was going to get a big, round bouquet of roses and it turned out to be a heart. And wait, I thought you planned that. Oh no, it was a mistake, no idea, you're a kid. Take And everyone said, said, you don't want a heart for a wedding book, And I said, I think we said, that's a brilliant idea.

You were the model. Was an editorial assistant. Yeah right, And I know, really I was reading even even Dorcy. I was looking as skance, thinking, oh God, just make it a hard Bookay, one of the most copy bouquet wedding bocause and florists all over the country were begged to make heart shaped rose bouquese. But this was a very special thing. And uh, and the weddings business was born. And who's the editor? Dorcy was laid away. She wasn't. Well, we did that with the living, we did that with

your living. I had left to Vandy. I abandoned you to have Ian, and then I came back for weddings. And I also came back for television. Okay, so I worked on that one. How dare you leave to have a baby? How dare you gave us baby show. I know, I was very nice. Well, we were all well, we were we were all having babies, which is why the Baby Magazine and then the Kids Magazine was such such good magazines because we were living it. You know, we were mothers. But you know, I should read my letters

from these these issues. That's here's the first issue from Martha. I was the editor in chief of this magazine. They surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise. What else was I doing in these days? Making all these beautiful year are doing television? Um Daily Show? Oh my gosh, Well no, I don't art director. I was

an editor in chief of this issue. So and then then we had oh gosh, Susan Spung and was doing the food, Sarah Medford who's now writing for so many Fantastic U and Darcy Miller, she was a senior editor at Hannah was a senior editor. We had We had an amazing group and Francis Boswell. People were still working with people we still talked to and who you'll meet a lot of these people in the next few years

as we'd continue with our podcast. You know, I think that the talent at our magazine was really everybody inspired one another and and you know, I'll be maybe this is sort of a crass thing to say, but everybody had this idea that they were all Martha's ideas, but in fact it was such a community of ideas and everybody shared their ideas and by the time it got on the page, you never knew like where it originated,

but that sense of being inspired by each other. People like Fritz Carsh who had had the most amazing office and was always finding things out there in the world and bringing them to show collecting editor and his stories were just inspiring. So it caused chaos in the antique world because we did a story on something that he wanted us to do a story on, and it became the rage and the prices Scott rocketed. So it's true.

We knew so from the very beginning. We had a source directory in the back because we knew that people would want to get things. And in the very first issue there was a cookie cutter that was made by this tiny little Moravian shop somewhere in Pennsylvania, and a week or so after the issue came out, we got a phone call from them saying he'll help. Yeah, we sold, So after that we had to start warning yeah, craftspeople and shops if we were going to feature something, because

so many people would have rights. Actually, our bus Selline cover of all time, wasn't it the Snowman? No, I don't know. That was after my time. I don't know. It wasn't it was? It was our well, you know what I think the Christmas this was the newstand best selling issue of all time. And I was recently on a commercial shoot with John Travolta, and John Travolta said to me, Martha, I have to show you some pictures because every Christmas I make the little ice cream snowman

for my family. What was the commercial you're doing at John Travolta, It was for okay, pre Miracle Growth, but he said, and he showed me pictures of different years of his snowman. That's that's the cutest thing. Isn't that nice? And this is John Travolta whatever cream Snowman with coconut. I love the idea of that hip people doing like making things so great all. Do you remember our fight about what John Dolan picture in this magazine? Yes, um, it's I actually yes, because I was so upset, so

I know about it. I don't think it ever got to because I did turn around. I did. I was not I was not informed of lots of it's the trunk of a car. But meanwhile, but John Dolan then became you know, this is a picture that I found. John Dolan is a famous and he had become as this car. And the advertising stuff said we had to remove the where we have, Yeah, we had to remove them, but they wanted me to remove the picture. I wanted

to the picture. And then the compromise we came up with was to remove remove the logo because they thought it would upset the advertisers of other cars. So that is that was the old fashioned way of thinking. Now, well, meanwhile, I am now a practically over this proudly. Well, that's exactly right. I practically quit over this. And there was a big to do in a big fight. And about two weeks later I sa Susanne Sobel in the elevator and she said to me, Gail, guess what we got

advertising from Mercedes because of that picture. I almost I could have run her neck. Yes, I practically lost my job over She like politely says, you know, oh, I know I love this cover. That's baby Jude, my first grandchild and my only granddaughter, Jude Stewart. And uh, it's not from in her play. This is her play. Oh, this is what she was born eleven years ago, so you figure that out. Truth thousand and twelve. And Jude

and Truman Truman was born already, because there's a Truman here. So, um, what a fantastic picture. I love this picture so much. And and any of you who are looking for a picture of Jude now you will never find it. I have been I am not allowed to ever show the faces of my grandchildren. Well probably other all other people do, but I'm not old. And so there's Jude the back of her head. But what a she's a beautiful like almost she's so tall as she's as almost as tall

as I am. And she's eleven and uh, and all all of these toys have gone. These are now books, yeah, because they're eleven, ten and eleven. So all these gorgeous educational toys are now books. Well I guess it taught them how to read. So listen, we could go on, and I think we have to do a second, a second editorial podcasts because um, but I want you to I want you to say something that you want to say is older about your years being the editor of this magazine. What did it? What did it really mean

to you? I think it was incredibly important to me because it's sort of wrought my life full circle in a way, because I grew up um in Ireland in a family that didn't have much money, and Ireland in general in those days was used to call it a third world country that just happened to be tacked onto Europe. But my dad was an architect, and so the idea was, things can be beautiful. We can't afford to buy them, we have to make them. So he would make gorgeous,

would print Christmas cards and things like that. And you know, if you wanted your room painted, you painted your own room, that kind of thing. And my mother made organic food. And then I came to America and sort of learned to be a sophisticated magazine editor, and then I went I met Martha, and everything came full circle and it back to you can make something beautiful, and everything can

be beautiful. You can your surroundings should be beautiful, your children's surroundings should be beautiful, and it's possible for everybody, and Gail. I guess the thing that I loved the most was the collaboration, the working with so many really really talented people, photographers and stylists, and the way the stories were made, because every story had a team, and the team would work together to make, you know, things

that just weren't out there in the world that were new. UM, and that idea of creativity and how each person wants to be creative themselves. I think we gave that to people. And then after I left Martha Stewart, I started a website called Portraits and Creativity where I did videos about artists and foundations, and I learned to love that idea, that transition of going from the storytelling on the page to the storytelling and video, which was so much a

part of our life at Martha Stewart. I think UM was very inspiring to me and inspired me to take that next step. But the thing that we didn't talk about was building the brand and the and going into Martha by Mail kmart. We haven't touched on any of those great stories, and I think that that was an extraordinarily creative moment in my life, and I know it was for you as well. And UM, we just had such a good time, such a good time, and we did great stuff and we were so innovative, you know,

bringing such good design to the kmart audience. And everybody pooh poo did everybody said you shouldn't do kmart, but we were exposed to seventy two million Americans, um, and it we did advertising, we traveled together. I'll have all my products that I made a kmart because we too. And nothing has failed, no nothing. The tools, the kitchen tools are still working absolutely and the garden tools still work.

That's right now. It was a very extraordinary time. But that was that was also an extraordinary time when we were still not reliant on uh everything being made overseas. We were still we were still a lot of American made. It was just starting to really expand worldwide, and the and the and uh as one economists said, the world was becoming flatter and flatter and you know, no boundaries, um, and sometimes you yearn for the olden days. But but progress has really shown us that we can still be

tremendously creative and still do so many amazing things. And and the two of you really helped a tremendous number of people hone their craft, really, both of you and Gail and as older we did exhibits. Do you remember the Coopers and they are direct remember you know, these were amazing exhibits. And we still have a book to write. Gail and I put together a book. That book is one of the most beautiful, beautiful books as I had, I have it yet you do it, okay, It's one

of the most beautiful books. It's a history of the creation of the Martha Stewart brand. And this this book has to be published because well we tried to get it published back in the day. Oh well, people were not they didn't understand branding. Boy, But now it will. It is very important and we will do it. But really and truly, I love talking to you guys. I love this, uh, this reminiscing of about a subject that is,

of course when you're en deared to my heart. But but I'm glad to hear that it meant a lot to you guys too. And um, and we will have another conversation about all the other great things. And let's

bring in a couple of other people too. When you start to meet all the people I have worked with, you are going to be astonished at the at the amazing, amazing people that uh, this one company has embraced, and how they have expanded their horizons beyond anybody's wildest dreams and gone on to be mother's, father's, aunt's, uncle's, grandma's whatever is old the mother of three, wife of a most amazing man, and Gail, mother of two, wife of

an amazing designer. Um, it's it's it makes me very proud. Thank you, Thank you, Martha. We are so lucky to have been able to work together and work with you and to pick back up after thirty years. Uh huh exactly