“I grew up going to the cinema at least once a week, and I watched older films at home. That’s not because I was following an independently curious streak; it’s just what my parents did with their time, and I followed. Along the way, a handful of films made an indelible impression: (Douglas Sirk’s) Imitation of Life, Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Klute, The Conversation, Alien, Kramer vs Kramer, The Silence of the Lambs, The Ice Storm, Jackie Brown, Eyes Wide Shut, The Insider. It’s an interest I carried into adulthood. This will sound silly, or implausible even, but for me, going to the cinema—to see stories made through image—is partly what makes life meaningful…”
“I recently found myself looking over the first issue of The Happy Reader again. The introductory letter I wrote for that issue drew on a time in which I was working as an office temp in the pharmacy department of a London hospital. Each day I was entitled to a lunch break of precisely one hour, as well as two fifteen-minute tea breaks, and I would spend part of that time pelting down a maze of corridors to an obscure corner of the hospital where I knew I could read a book in peace. Reading this account again, it struck me that these were probably the happiest reading experiences of my life. To have been employed to turn my love of books into a magazine, was, of course, a dream job…”
“I was just in Finland for a month and a half recently and I feel like I was able to create as much as I probably did in a year spent only working in Paris. There is something about this special time you are granted just for your practice, you are taken care of, even offered funding sometimes and you finally feel you can focus on your practice as a priority. These precious periods of time also allow me to discover literature and worlds I wouldn’t have otherwise. I read a lot of Finnish poetry while I was there, I read everything I could find in translation actually. One book stayed quite strongly with me: poems/runoja by Anselm Hollo. He translated some of his own poetry!”
“I grew up in Paris, Rive Gauche. Many great writers lived or spent time in the places I would often visit. [As a kid] I saw commemorative plaques [on the walls of buildings] so I was [aware of] historic French writers at a very young age. I read their books at school since they were part of the curriculum, but I don’t recall being sensitive to them. I think my strong interest in literature started with reading Just Kids by Patti Smith. I was in awe of her. I was amazed by how she lived her life by being such a wild card. Reading her felt like, suddenly, everything was possible, achievable...”
I read Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot right after it came out, which happened to coincide with my first serious breakup. I was a sophomore in college on vacation with my mom and step-dad in the Caribbean and I stayed up all night in the warm, humid air, just racing through the book... “And it was during this period that Madeleine truly understood how the lover’s discourse was of an extreme solitude. The solitude was extreme because it wasn’t physical. It was extreme because you felt it while in the company of the person you loved. It was extreme because it was in your head, that most solitary of places...”
“It was a farfetched dream of mine to create sandals for years and I started the line when my son was a baby because I wanted to be a good role model for him never be afraid to follow his dreams. I read The Alchemist on my first work trip to Italy. The theme of fulfilling your personal destiny will always resonate with me. I started my brand with no experience or background in footwear or shoe design—it was at that point simply a dream that I wanted to pursue wholeheartedly. I spent several hours jet-lagged in the middle of the night rereading and underlining passages…”
“Growing up in both British Hong Kong and San Marino made very different, yet distinct impressions on me as a child. Hong Kong was high tea and Anglomania meets Cantonese contemporary films, as that's what we were watching with our parents. San Marino was partly very buttoned-up, but also as laid back as the rest of LA. I was into my mom’s Vogue magazines, Green Day, and the novel Valley of the Dolls, and fantasized about moving to New York City. In my 20s, I worked at Band of Outsiders, and my boss was a huge cinephile and super plugged into the LA art scene: I was steeped in the world of prep, Jean-Luc Godard, Woody Allen, and a less glitzy but more interesting L.A.”
“I was sixteen when we moved to New York City, a time of complete reckoning with identity. Moving to a different city, without speaking the language, pushed me to immediately want to assimilate. I would become the characters in the American films I would see, the characters in the American books I would read. But I also found myself unapologetically moved by European literature. I read a lot of Eastern European writers in my first year of college. It was the first year I was able to read as well in English as in French. There were a few writer’s voices that, up to this day, I have never felt more seen by. They freed my insecurities, moved me beyond fear…”
“I’ve been making small books, typically tangible, for friends and lovers over the years, sometimes just to share what I’ve been reading, and other times to communicate through images. It’s a simple and funny gesture, really, kind of like scanning in all my dog ears and underlined notes. They come together instinctually when I see overlaps or interesting connections between all the books on my table. I like the tactility of booklets, the way you can start in the middle, flip backwards and through. The linearity can be disrupted, which is exciting and not as easily possible through digital forms...”
“Perusing books of beautiful imagery, objects, and design contributes to my desire to create. I wouldn’t say that this is directly informative to my practice, as I prefer to pull from memories and personal perception when designing, and avoid direct inspiration. I do turn to a few that I have, such as a small 1990s Parisian title on Cartier or a collection of images of villas and gardens in Tuscany, to embody a mood that creating jewelry invokes for me. And the idea of a concisely put-together printed work inspires me to find ways for my own work—more so, all the erratic ideas constantly running in my mind—to live under one overarching and distinct sense of me…”
“Growing up I was heavily dyslexic, it took me till age 7 to learn how to read properly. I never enjoyed books until I was a teenager. In the early 2000s’ I moved from London to Los Angeles. It was definitely a culture shock for me. I was made fun of for having a british accent and dealt with a lot of racism being a mixed child. I used literature, art, fashion, and music to run away. I felt like I resonated more with the indie sleaze movement rather than the classic pop world. I mainly used books to escape and help me create...”