What is Santa Fe style? Where did it come from? Where is it going? These are some of the questions we ponder in this issue. Because TABLE is about all the things that make for a good life, we found ourselves wondering (as we always do) not just about the food we eat, but also about what we wear, where we live…and what we love about the whole of it.
Curating Santa Fe Style in Fashion, Home, Cuisine, and Beyond
New Mexico is all about the individual – the soft-spoken rule breaker rather than the strident rule maker. The murmuring iconoclast, not the shouting ideologue. The maverick over the nabob. As we contemplated the style of this beloved place, we found amazing interlocutors. From the always thoughtful Teresa Robinson of Living Threads, who curated our cover shoot with loot from local boutiques, to the six New Mexicans who modeled for us, each the epitome of individuality that is at the heart of Santa Fe style, we were dazzled by everyone we encountered. Photographer Ashley Lynn captured the magic.
What we learned is that Santa Fe style, indeed New Mexico style, is more eclectic and personal than ever. That it draws on an increasingly diverse, international-minded citizenry who value quality, connection with the maker, and clothes that are as comfortable as a second skin. Labels, fast fashion, and the hottest look are not for these souls. They’re devoted to a new wave only now being defined by trend forecasters: a post-trend era where we curate a life well-lived because it is not defined by consumerism and its hollow, short-lived pageantry, but by compassion, connoisseurship, and comfort.
Looking at Style in the Home
We then looked at Santa Fe style through the lens of architecture. We look into the petite casita of a twenty-something whose home is a soothing palette of muted earth tones and the perfect spot for chilling out after work or hanging out with friends. Next stop: an old adobe residence that reminds us that the bones of Santa Fe buildings are built to last. At their very best, they are family homes with handsomely weathered faces, warm hearts, and living souls.
And Christine Mather invited us into her home to meet her and Santa Fe Style co-author Sharon Woods. She discussed the age old, time-tested characteristics of a northern New Mexico home. But she also noted that nothing stays the same: if an idea is alive, there is movement and life in it. It inevitably evolves with the lives of the people who keep its flame alive, and the needs of the place it embodies. As she often says about the subject of her nearly forty-year-old tome: Santa Fe style is dead! Long Live Santa Fe style!
Diving Deeper into Santa Fe
Once you’ve strolled through the clothes and the homes in this issue, please ponder two deep-dive resource guides. First, some of our favorite designers and architects opened their little black books to share the names of master woodworkers, tinsmiths, furniture makers and painters with whom they love to work. Each one is a reminder that New Mexico is rich with what makes a house a treasured home.
Second, Bill Smith takes us on a walkabout around the great dining options of our country’s oldest state capital. He includes almost thirty eating and drinking establishments, ensuring you’ll leave with your stomach full.
The Artistic Side of the City
To deepen still further this issue’s contemplation of style and creativity, the Wheelwright Museum opened its vaults for a glimpse into Indigenous jewelry of the 1970s. Captured by photographer Tira Howard, the splendid work on these pages is a heady mix of traditional skills and materials, modern genius…and protest. We have much to learn in the current day from their bold statements of principle and their cry for change.
Hungry for more? We stop by the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum to meet their Colcha Club and the inspired visionary who is keeping this venerable art form alive and well. Then it’s off to Double DD Ranch for a weekend of memoir writing, and then to the home of one of Santa Fe’s premier party throwers and goers for a garden fête replete with gossip, food, and drink.
As always, our gallery guide and cultural calendar keep your days – and nights – full, no matter the parameters of your Santa Fe style. Because at the end of the day, we live life differently here. Personality, individuality, and vision are as prized in “the 505” as always. May it always be so.
Story by Julia Platt Leonard and Keith Recker
Photography by Ashley Lynn
Modeling by Tira Howard
Subscribe to TABLE Magazine’s print edition.
