Just the Facts, Ma'am

Cindy Allen -- Interior Design, 10/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Line by line, letter by letter, fact checking requires critical attention to absolutely every microscopic detail in this entire magazine, issue after issue—it's a demanding endeavor that takes a long, long, long time to complete. (Did I say "long" yet?) For two weeks out of every single month, assistant editor Mairi Beautyman and temp Nick Tamarin dedicate every waking moment to unraveling whether "Aero Studios" refers to Thomas O'Brien's retro-chic shop as well as his powerhouse design firm (no) or determining if Edward Tuttle, who recently completed the stately Park Hyatt Milan, used epoxy to fill holes in the lobby's travertine floor (yes).

Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City (comma) immortalized this festishistic ritual with pitch-perfect hilarity. Some of our subjects, however, respond to the exhaustive questioning with remarkably poor humor—you know who you are. Nevertheless, we persevere. And we think that's a fundamental part of what makes Interior Design an indispensable tool for our readers.

Nothing is more fact-packed than the lists of Interior Design Giants that research manager Wing Leung puts out three times a year. (The hospitality Giants appear in this issue.) Reviewing that wealth of data, I've set myself an essential task to complete in the next few weeks: I plan to assess how interior design has fared since November 2000. Has our industry expanded or contracted? Have productivity and creativity been ebbing or flowing? In other words, are we better off today than we were four years ago? First I'll gather my facts. Then I'll check them.