Written by Staff Writer at CNN
When Carver Thompson, the president of House of Style, hit the road at the end of last year for her sixth luxury fashion event in a row, she probably didn’t expect that her book-inspired event would also become a book.
But, barely five months after the festivities wrapped up in New York, Thompson’s Love Stories had secured an international publisher. Its first edition is out September 11, with the second coming out in February 2019.
In the words of House of Style founder and guest editor, Holmes Osborne , “Carver has certainly delivered the goods.”
House of Style launched back in 2008. It is now based in New York and has grown into a global fashion and lifestyle destination for inspiring short narratives and informative essays by designers, stylists, creatives and entrepreneurs around the world.
It has gained an editorial influence far beyond what you might expect from a luxury retail group; its eponymous publication — relaunched in 2010 — is one of the New York metro area’s top fashion magazines, with a circulation of around 108,000.
Carver Thompson, author of “At the Halloween Party, Anxious to Go Home.” Credit: Courtesy House of Style
The company’s book, edited by Holmes Osborne and Leah Strasser, aims to dig into the lives of some of its best-known columnists and talent. Alongside photographer and writer Thompson, fellow House of Style contributors include Suzy Menkes and Ashley Seth Nicholson, as well as Brian Reyes, Bernd and Dieter Kayser, Rachel Comey, Jonny Bowden, Mike Sharkey and Ash Dorrance.
Thompson shares an interesting story about why the story about a hotdog is her favorite contribution.
“I do lots of glamorous things with celebrities — but for a long time I never had one, or a sexy woman,” she says. “Then when I was in school in Britain, I got a short story published by a literary journal. I got an introduction from the editor, who then sold me to Random House, so it became a kind of a young writer’s dream and a little glimpse of something that I was looking for. Then when I was in New York working with Holmes, I saw her talking about the same thing with [fashion journalist] Ingrid Sischy. I told her I had a short story in my past, and that it was about a sexy woman. She laughed — in that way of hers — and said, ‘I love short stories about sexy women’.”
Simpler times
The contributors share quite a lot of wryly amusing anecdotes, and each essay offers a glimpse into the high-octane life of being a fashion journalist or stylist.
“In New York, we spend hours looking for angles on (Fashion Week) news,” says Wilkinson. “In Birmingham, I have to stuff bags on and go to every stationery store I can find. I say to my mom, ‘Isn’t life just too good? I could save the world. This is my job, I just need to do a little bit better at it’.”
Not all books have to be highbrow. Many of the Love Stories appeal to a millennial crowd, which has become the company’s most loyal following.
“We’re having the same conversations in rooms this year as we did in 2012 and 2013,” says Thompson. “There is more work to be done and more conversation to be had, but we’ve created a really engaged audience, and they’re giving us their feedback.”
