When news broke in December that Lonny cofounders Michelle Adams and Patrick Cline had been tapped to create a younger, hipper, cooler, digital cousin of Traditional Home, the questions—oh, how they boiled. Most pertinently, how would Trad Home break the shackles of the sort of aesthetic their wizened elder has grown known for: formal portraiture as just one sticking point? Well, the spring issue of Trad Home has just gone live, which means we finally get to see what Lonny/Traditional Home offspring looks like.
First necessary fact: the book totals a daunting 347 pages, with the vast bulk grouped in a massive feature well. (Far off the distance, print editors are wailing that they, too, can't have 200-page wells.) Moreover, Trad Home's entire feature well here is devoted to the 20 "new traditional" designers that the magazine unveiled in February. Defined by "an uncommon ability to be traditional in the 21st century," the group includes it-boy decorator Ryan Korban, whose work for fashion designer Alexander Wang is shown in this month's W. As expected, there's talk of shag rugs, linen draperies, flea-market finds, rules of symmetry, Albert Hadley, and Dorothy Draper. It's worth pointing out that none of these projects were submitted as-is; last we caught up with Adams she and Cline were flying through hell and high water to style and produce and/or assign the shoots.
Front-of-book sections feel very Lonny, with pages themed by color and trend, short interviews, and feminine, collage-like layouts. Elsewhere in the magazine, designers Jonathan Adler and Charlotte Moss chat about their thoughts on traditional design in a terrific video "spread." (You flip the page, and the video begins—it's wild.) Speaking of traditional, an entire 10-page spread is devoted to—what else?—the Louis chair. But of course!
· Lonny Duo to Launch Online-Only Version of Traditional Home [Curbed National]
· Delightfully Absurd Portraiture in Dec. Traditional Home [Curbed National]
· Trad Home Spring 2011 [Lonnymag.com]
· Sneaking a Peek at Trad Home's 20 "New Traditional" Designers [Curbed National]
· Your Place or Mine? [W]
By now, you've probably seen Xtranormal's adorably big-headed characters in any number of situations—as an aspiring