I Knew Jim Knew: Jim Walrod knows a thing or two…
//Jacket photograph Terry Richardson with shots from Walrod’s Instagram feed//
Design authority Jim Walrod wears a deep and wide-ranging understanding of his subject – specifically that pertaining to modernism in furniture, interiors, product design and architecture – lightly.
This is refreshing in a field populated by bloodless experts and humourless know-alls. The founder of important 90s/00s store Form & Function, Walrod – described as “the ultimate design raconteur” by André Balazs and “the furniture pimp” by the Beastie Boys – is above all an enthusiast.
As a New York-based one, it is fitting that downloads from Walrod’s vast bank of info are imparted in new book I Knew Jim Knew with a sardonic bite and likeable twist.
The premise of I Knew Jim Knew is Walrod’s penchant for – and retention of – snappy, off-beat facts, preferably those looping the more abstruse design info into New York popular culture.
As he notes in his introduction, Walrod’s been gathering these snippets since he was a Jersey City kid avidly consuming Rock Scene and Hit Parader (this apparently stood him in good stead when, aged 14, he was saved from being bounced out of Max’s Kansas City by Cheetah Chrome).
With a foreword by Andy Spade (of accessories brands Kate Spade and Jack Spade) and interviews with Walrod dating from 1999 (by Peter Halley for Index) and 2012 (by Patrick Parrish for Apartamento), I Knew Jim Knew is replete with Reithian values.
Some facts strike a personal chord – who knew the quiet place down the street from where I regularly stayed in NYC in the mid-00s was once John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s downtown home? – others lead off into digital lines of inquiry: the artists Nancy Grossman and Nicola L. are newly added to my own arsenal of discreetly-nurtured obsessions.
The adornment of photography with shots from Walrod’s Instagram feed underpins the spontaneous feel of the enterprise and drives home the fact that Jim Walrod knows a thing or two, particularly when it comes to design.
I heartily recommend I Knew Jim Knew. Published by Powerhouse Books, it is available here.
Visit Nicola L.’s site here; Nancy Grossman’s Tough Life Diary is reviewed by Bettina Hubby here.
Visit Jim Walrod Design here.