Interview: AphroChic’s Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason talk with MyFixitUpLife

Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason talk about what it’s like working with their spouse, AphroChic, Global Decor and their book Remix: Decorating with Culture, Objects and Soul.

Mark: Here inside MyFixitUpLife with, I’m still married to her, my wife, Theresa.

Theresa: Well, yeah Mark. I mean, we are married. Did you do something during the break?

Mark: We are married, but sometimes when you’re working with your spouse.

Theresa: Yes.

Mark: Sometimes you just think, “What am I doing?”

Theresa: Um … you know, celebrating the other person’s charisma and talents and joy. You know, holding hands and running through daisies, right?

Mark: I think I stopped listening at hands and charisma.

Theresa: Oh, okay. We’ve got another couple on the line and they work together too.

Mark: Yes. Jeanine and Bryan from AphroChic.com. Are you currently still married?

Jeanine Hays: Yes we are!

Bryan Mason: We’re happily married.

Theresa: Yeah, high five to you guys and I want to congratulate you guys. We haven’t talked to you since your book came out Remix: Decorating with Culture, Objects and Soul.

Jeanine Hays: Yes, yes it’s been a while since we’ve talked. The book came out in November and it’s doing well and we’re excited. We don’t have kids, but for us that actually was our baby, I think, writing a book. I don’t know how it is Theresa, I can say, but I heard that writing a book is like giving birth. I think, for us, it was definitely a challenging experience, but we’ve loved every minute of it.

Theresa: You know, Mark and I have had the pleasure of writing books and I have actually had a baby as well, so I can tell you that the process is very similar. And then when you have it and you’re as joyful about the finished product, because it takes so long to create. But I have to say that giving birth is a little more painful.

Jeanine Hays: Yeah, I’m sure.

Theresa: Except for Mark who during labor he said …

Mark: This is good, this is good.

Theresa: This is one of my favorite things my husband has ever done is, during labor he says to everyone in the room …

Mark: Oh yeah, I would say to the doctors and nurses, “You have no idea how hard this is on me.”

Theresa: And they all laughed and I’m like, “Okay, really?” I’m like, “I’m having a baby here, seriously guys?”

Mark: Yeah, that worked out well for me.

Theresa: It really worked out well for Mark.

Bryan Mason: Yeah sounded like you probably paid for that later.

Mark: Maybe so when I had to paint a white line down the middle of our house.

Theresa: Okay so you guys are talking to us before we started the interview, during break. What is the deal with your advice about painting a white line down the middle of the house?

Bryan Mason: Painting a white line down the middle of the house is a good idea, as long as one side is for work and one side is for not work.

Theresa: See we haven’t mastered that yet. For us, Mark and I, we’re either talking about work or we’re talking about the kids.

Jeanine Hays: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No we understand that. I think we definitely like to have a place for work and a place for play. I think that’s totally important for us to be able to get through our days because we, like you guys, do work together all day and we’re in the house a lot of the time because we’re working in our studio.

Bryan Mason: We try to keep everything contained in the studio, just have the one place and not let work kind of leak out, but it never happens and we’ll end up working in the kitchen or at the dining room table or wherever we are.

Theresa: You know my biggest problem with that too is that when we’re out in the world I get inspired by anything. I mean, it can be a bug on the side of the road, it can be a leaf or a random car and I’m like, “Oh my goodness” and then I start thinking about all the different things that we’re doing and if there’s a solution to something that we’re trying to create and I can’t contain it. How do you do that Jeanine? Tell me how you do that.

Jeanine Hays: Oh my gosh. Well I will say, and I’m sure this happens with your husband as well, I am definitely, being the Creative Director, my mind is the same. I’m always just struck by creativity and want to do sometimes kind of out there crazy things, when we’re designing a new product or working on an article. But, I think, my husband is a very good balance, in terms of kind of reeling it in sometimes and really helping me to focus and think about how do we share the best thing with our audience or our clientele. I think it really does work that we balance each other out. I’m extremely crazy creative and Bryan is definitely … you’re definitely the more practical side of AphroChic.

Bryan Mason: Yeah, but we definitely know what you mean about inspiration coming from anywhere. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been out and seen anything. Jeanine is convinced that I take better iPhone pictures than she does, so I can’t tell you how many pictures of city tree grates or the sides of buildings or even random patterns of falling leaves I’ve taken pictures of that have become anything from wallpaper designs to new pillow ideas.

Theresa: So you just roll with that, but at first were you like, “You want me to take a picture of what?!”

Jeanine Hays: I think he was like that. I will say we have a picture that he took last spring that we actually Instagram, I think it was last spring when all these petals were falling down in Old City. We ended up being able to take that photo and make it into a print that is currently being hand-dyed in Rwanda as part of a new collection we’re putting together. So it all works.

Bryan Mason: It works, it works. I’ve become accustomed to the process.

Theresa: Well I have to say, we started talking to Jeanine maybe three years ago, I’d say. Just a little bit after I think you were moving or had just moved to Philadelphia from California.

Jeanine Hays: Yeah.

Theresa: I remember you talking about, I think it was the Juju hats or something like that, and describing all of this art with us that’s from all around the world and now it’s such a big trend. Like everyone’s doing it, everyone’s talking about having global influences in their design.

Jeanine Hays: Yeah.

Theresa: It’s exciting that you were able to do a book about it as well. To share all of that inspiration with everyone.

Jeanine Hays: Oh it’s really been so rewarding. I think that when we started AphroChic, seven years ago when we started blogging, one of the things was to share this diversity that was happening in design, culture and this unique global style. And now, seven years later, to have a book that really does bring everything that we’ve been talking about together. Whether it’s talking about an ikat print or a Juju hat or all of these great global pieces that you can bring into your space that add to modern design, that add color and texture and pattern.

It’s been very exciting to kind of, I guess, capture what’s happening in modern design.  Bryan and I have both said that what we’re seeing now, in terms of, like he said, if you’re now going on Pinterest, you’re going to see a lot of these global pieces incorporated into interiors, is that the global is becoming a part of what modern design is about.  That’s a really wonderful and amazing transformation that we’re seeing in modern home décor today.

Theresa: That is absolutely wonderful.

Mark: I love that you guys are so far ahead of it that you’ve been able to write a book, get it published, think about it, create it ahead of the trend.

Jeanine Hays: Yeah we’re lucky.

Theresa: Would that be called they’re “Trendsetters” Mark?  That’s what that’s called?

Mark: Yes, I’m a Tastemaker so I know.

Theresa: Oh really?

Mark: By the way, what is global design?

Bryan Mason: Well global design is actually really interesting because a lot of people will tend to think of it as collecting things that come from somewhere else.  But we’re all here on the globe together, so there are a lot of different ways that you can incorporate things from where you are and from other places in the world that all qualifies as global.

So Jeanine and I we actually like to think a lot more in terms of cultural design within global design because then it becomes, not only about your ability to incorporate things from other places, but then also your ability to bring your own culture into your space because that all qualifies as global too.  Really where we’re at in the process right now is really trying to deepen everyone’s sort of understanding of global pieces, because it’s easy to incorporate something in from another culture.  You can find things now over the Internet and there are so many great stores.  But really understanding where that piece comes from, what its original intent was, is an amazing window on the cultures that created these pieces that we love so much now.

Jeanine Hays: Yeah we’re starting to call ourselves, I just came up with this term, I don’t know if it’s a real word or not, but I think of “Culturalists.”  And it’s because we love culture so much and we think that’s the way that anyone can really express themselves in the most personal way in their home.  Whether it’s that you have ancestry in Belgium or you have ancestry in parts of Africa and Morocco or France or any place around the world.  Being able to bring that cultural expression into your home creates a very unique style of home décor.  We find that to be extremely exciting and really define that, whether it’s the homeowners in our book or others that we’re talking about who travel all over the globe and bring pieces back from these different places, they’re using these cultural pieces as a way of self expression in their interior.

Mark: I’m moved to slight silence, but not so much that I won’t keep talking.

So you have got to check out AphroChic.com.  Get there, get inspired.  Follow them on Twitter @AphroChic, A-P-H-R-O-C-H-I-C.  Check them out on Facebook.  Stay with us, we will be back after this break with more of MyFixitUpLife.