The Collector
Martha Stewart believes more is more meaningful.
Martha Stewart has never gotten rid of a single piece of clothing. Stored in the attic of her home in Bedford, New York, her museum-quality collection is climate controlled and perfectly organized.
Each item is hung professionally and removed from dry-cleaner plastic—her very own vast sartorial archive. The long reigning queen of domesticity begs the question: wouldn’t we all keep everything if we could?
Each of Stewart’s drawers is dedicated to one item; in this drawer, scarves are staggered so each one is visible.
Stewart oversees an impressive empire. Over her seven decades, she’s transformed skills such as cooking and crafting into high art. At 76, she still gardens, decorates, organizes, entertains, and more—all the while managing four houses, a multimedia brand, and a new denim line for QVC. Personally, she is an adoring grandmother to daughter Alexis’s two children, Jude, 7, and Truman, 6, and she also dotes on her 200-plus pets and farm animals.
On a Friday afternoon, Stewart fields questions from a reporter via phone. Unaccustomed to monotasking, she both talks and chops. “There’s leftover short ribs and brisket chuck,” she explains. “I have people coming to visit tomorrow for a garden show and I’m making sandwiches. I’m caramelizing onions to throw in, and probably some oven-roasted tomatoes, and I’ll use horseradish from my garden.” She makes it sound effortless.
Is there nothing she can’t do? “I learned how to sew all my clothes,” she says of her modest upbringing in Nutley, New Jersey, as the second oldest of six. “Shirt sleeves, button holes, jackets, coats—I made my own wedding dress.” She married Yale law student Andrew Stewart (whom she divorced in 1990) while attending Barnard, where she double-majored in history and architectural history. They settled in Connecticut; Stewart started a catering business, and a New York publisher approached her to write a cookbook. Entertaining came out in 1982, Martha Stewart Living magazine in 1990, and her television show in 1993.
loading CalclosetsArticleQuote ...
loading CalclosetsArticlePieceWideImg ...
loading CalclosetsArticlePieceWideImg ...
loading CalclosetsArticlePieceWideImg ...
CC design consultant
Chris Reynolds
by Sally Schultheiss
loading CalclosetsArticleInformation ...
loading CalclosetsCtaWithOverlayAutoHeight ...
