Style your home like a visual merchandiser
Play your way to a home you love
Before we dive into today’s post about how I ‘merchandise’ my home (hear me out, it will make sense), I wanted to say a very big thank you to all my new subscribers and of course those of you who’ve been here from the beginning when I first moved my writing to Substack a couple of years ago. Or even those of you who’ve been here from the very beginning (shoutout to Blogspot circa 2009). I’ve written some form of blog since about 2009 on various platforms and while I’m not convinced Substack has it all figured out yet, there does seem to be a sense of community that has been lacking over the years in the blogging/online writing world.
I’m a big reader and I have been since childhood. I get anxious if my bedside book pile isn’t teetering on the edge of collapse. Going to bed if the pile is dwindling sparks a certain kind of anxiety in me, particularly because I wake up a lot and can usually be found reading in the dead of night to soothe myself back to sleep. Having Substack as one more way to read thoughtfully written content has been brilliant (although I tend not to read it in the dead of night because of that sleep scaring phone glow, but it’s nice to know I can in a book deficiency emergency).
I rarely scroll on Instagram these days, instead checking my feed on the Substack app for new articles by writers I follow in fashion, finance, interiors and more. The only issue I have is keeping up with the torrent of great writing (It’s not the only issue actually. Read on). I used to spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking about ideas for things to post on Instagram. Now I do that for Substack and it feels a lot more, I don’t know…wholesome?
Whether you’re a paid or free subscriber, it really means a lot to me to know you’ve signed up and I take it very seriously. Unlike some writers on here, Substack is not how I earn a living, but that doesn’t mean I don’t value it. But since writing has also been a big part of my career (hello interiors books) I know what it takes to create valuable work - time, planning, vulnerability, honesty, experience - and it’s for that reason I add a paywall to some of my posts. This one is free so please read on!
With more and more writers, professional and amateur - and I welcome them all - moving their work here, it is becoming harder and harder to expect readers to pay for content. Few people can afford as many subscriptions as they’d like. There are so many writers whose work I’d like to support, but they add up and paying for 5, 10, 20+ monthly subscriptions just isn’t feasible for many of us.
I don’t know what the answer is but I do think Substack will have to address it soon. In the meantime, if you’ve chosen Life Unstyled as one of the select few to pay for, thank you so much! And if you’re a free subscriber, thank you as well! Whenever I receive an email notification telling me someone new has signed up, I say thank you out loud to YOU! Ok then, let’s talk merchandising.
Think like a visual merchandiser to style your home.
I’ve written often about my belief that a home shouldn’t be allowed to become stagnant and the best way to keep one’s home fresh and alive is by moving things around. But I’m also hyper aware that people have lives and not everyone has the time/energy/desire to regularly refresh their home. I’m not expecting everyone to be fussing with things on shelves or moving plants, tables, cabinets with as much frequency as I do. I am an actual interior stylist whose job requires me to do such things. And I genuinely enjoy it.
But I will say this: Years of faffing around at home is how I figured out my style and it’s how I learned what works and what doesn’t.
One of my first jobs after I shut down my kids’ clothing business in about 2009 was at Anthropologie in Pasadena, California as a display artist and later a visual merchandiser. My kids were now both in school and I found it to be the perfect job to work around also being a mum. The pay was rubbish, but it was creative, hands on and the 6am-3pm hours were perfect, if exhausting. For about a year I was huddled in the art room at the back of the store hand making elaborate displays for the windows and vignettes throughout the large store, using power tools and glue guns on a daily basis.
A year into the job the opportunity came up to move to visual merchandising in the same store. A display artist did the arty stuff, the visual merchandisers handled the product and every store had a small team who worked together on the overall look and blending of all these elements. Even though I love fashion and I care about what I wear, I was always more interested in interiors and art, even back then. However, it turns out I had a knack for arranging the clothes and product.
Because Anthropologie sold both fashion/accessories and homeware, I learned the art of cross-merchandising: displaying/arranging all categories together on tables, rails, shelves etc. I remember in the early days of making the job switch, my supervisor at the time - a woman whose style and creative eye I greatly admired and respected - commenting that I’d found my thing. I was good at it.
It came somewhat intuitively to me to know what worked well together and what would fit in the given spaces. Fitting new merchandise in with old on the already full rails; Knowing when to edit; styling vases and books next to belts and headbands in an antique display case; arranging folded jeans and strappy heels next to a piece of hand made display on a huge table. It was like a big puzzle and the only way to solve it was with trial and error and constant analysis and movement.
I may have had a knack for it but my skills were honed by the act of experimenting.
And this is what I want you to take away from this anecdote. If you’re here reading this, my guess is you like interiors. Some of you may be amateur dabblers looking to beautify your home, others of you may be more experienced. What I know is that we can all improve our skills by low stakes play when it comes to styling our homes. When I’m moving furniture around at home or trying to find a solution for my clothes in a room that has no wardrobe, it doesn’t directly affect my work on a particular photo shoot for a client. But playing with my interiors at home is adding to a loose, intangible set of skills that allow me to be a better stylist at work.
The playing and ‘merchandising’ you do in your home will help you to build your styling skills which will in turn help you to create a home that feels like you. It takes time to get it right, whatever that even means, but it is only with time and experimentation that we can build the story of our lives and homes.
This next and final image is what made me want to write this piece. My bedroom doesn’t have a wardrobe. And when I added a second guest loo to the entrance hallway, the new wall created a space too narrow to fit large pieces of furniture - like a wardrobe - into my bedroom. Honestly, the things I’ve learned from this renovation!
So for now, I keep my clothes in a large wardrobe in the spare bedroom next door and I keep a small rail in my room. It’s not ideal, but it is pretty far down the list of priorities right now, so I make it work. Having a separate rail brought back all my memories of my early days merchandising in the store and the old instinct kicked in. I found myself pulling outfits together, editing down only what I thought would work together for the coming weeks.
Creating a capsule wardrobe has never been my thing. I’ve always favoured the overstuffed, overflowing type of wardrobe. The kind you find in your favourite vintage store. However, I always arrange my clothes by category, sleeve length etc because I like order within my chaos. If you don’t already do this, you absolutely must. You will gain back hours of your life otherwise wasted trying to find a pair of trousers that are mixed up with skirts and tops and jackets.
On the rail though, things are different. A couple of tops might hang next to a couple of jeans with a jacket and scarf in between, grouped in the way you would wear them, just as you would find in any well merchandised clothing store. It’s called outfitting and I love it. The older I get, the more I am inclined to simplify my life, my interiors, my bathroom cabinets, my finances, and apparently also my wardrobe.
I’ve also been volunteering at a charity shop once a week and have been shocked - truly, I can’t wait go each week - by how much I enjoy it. The sorting of donations, pricing, arranging on rails and shelves, editing and culling old stock. The merchandiser in me finds it somehow both calming and energising.
Many of you will know that my house has been a work in progress, jobs getting done in fits and spurts as time, money, headspace has allowed. And I suspect it is the same for many of you. Creating a home takes time. So in those in between times - whether they are weeks, months, or years - take time to play. Let your inner merchandiser loose and see what he/she creates.
If you’re reading this in the email, please click through to the post and leave me a comment. I always love hearing your thoughts. Thanks for reading!
Lovely post! I can definitely identify with the in-betweeny stage of doing up a house, I have corners that look great! - and others, that look less great (industrial clothes rail and all!). This has inspired me to play around with moving thinks about though rather than assuming everything is static and has found its place.
Also re: substack - I was always a fan of blogs and longer form content so it's been great. However, I'm at four paid subscriptions, so c. £20/ month - and im starting to think I cant justify ANOTHER subscription. Especially when I compare it to buying magazines (albeit there are few magazines these days that I actually buy as they have so little content). I wish there was a shared subscription model where I could pay eg £20 to read X articles - and this would also help with discovering new writers too.
I never thought about it like this, but I guess I do this in my own home. Also I'm new to substack but agree it feels more wholesome, a bit like blogging used to feel like in the hey days!