Best of Design Matters: Kim Hastreiter

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This episode of Design Matters originally appeared in March of 2026

Kim Hastreiter (0:06)

To me, right now, what we're going through, that I feel like I have to put art out in the universe. Artists have to put the best art, the best inspiration out in the universe right now.

SPEAKER_1 (0:21)

From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, a conversation with Kim Hastreiter about New York City, art, magazines, and about breaking the Internet.

Kim Hastreiter (0:45)

No one ever heard a paper and in 24 hours, everyone knew paper in the whole world.

Debbie Millman (0:55)

Kim Hastreiter is a creator and a connector of worlds as well as an editor, curator, collector, and catalyst who has spent more than four decades at the center of cultural emergence.

As the co-founder and longtime editor of Paper Magazine, she built one of the most influential platforms documenting the intersection of art, fashion, music, and nightlife in downtown New York and beyond. She's also worked with everyone from Keith Haring to President Barack Obama, and her new book, Stuff! A New York Life of Cultural Chaos, tells the story of her life through the objects and people she has encountered and gathered along the way. Kim Hastreiter, welcome to Design Matters. Thank you.

Kim Hastreiter (1:43)

I'm so excited to be here.

Debbie Millman (1:45)

Kim, I understand that you identify as both a loudmouth and a snob. Why is that? Why those two particular things?

Kim Hastreiter (1:56)

I think it has a little to do with DNA, I hate to tell you, but it's not a learned thing. But I am kind of stubborn like my father was, and super opinionated. And also, the older I get, the more I get that way because the time is running out. I mean, now I'm kind of like in fast motion because I turn 70, when I turn 70, you know, you kind of see the end and then I've become like completely a maniac about like, not wasting time. There's no transactional stuff. It's all has to be like high bar. I have a high bar.

Debbie Millman (2:32)

Yeah. As I'm getting older and older and just right behind you, a couple of years behind you, everything becomes more urgent.

Kim Hastreiter (2:39)

Yeah.

Debbie Millman (2:40)

You grew up in West Orange, New Jersey and by your own mother's account, she described you as a square suburban girl. How is that possible?

Kim Hastreiter (2:53)

I was just young. I was, I don't know if you remember villager outfits, but I wore like villager outfits with high socks and like A-line skirts and like little circle pins.

I went to high school, junior high school. I walked. It was in the suburbs. And so I had a lot of friends, but I wasn't, no one was kooky or like outrageous. And then, you know, it all happened when I went to when I left.

Debbie Millman (3:17)

Your mother was curious, political, intellectually hungry, and an avid reader of The New Yorker and The New York Times. What did you learn from watching her move through the world?

Kim Hastreiter (3:28)

Well, crossword puzzles. I mean, we did the crossword puzzle maniacally. And so my grandmother, I had a great grandmother too, my nana, her mother. And so, you know, when you're 17 and 16, you don't register any of this stuff. So you register it later on, and you look back and you're like, oh my God, she would read about stuff. She'd read about an artist, George Rickey, for example, and she became obsessed. She read about him in The New Yorker. And then we had a schlep up to Connecticut, with my father, made my father drive us all to Connecticut to buy a sculpture. You know, it was like $1,000 in those days. But George Rickey did these beautiful, I don't know if you know his work, but he did these beautiful sculptures that were kinetic. And, you know, I grew up with the George Rickey. And she always went to the restaurant. She always knew everything. Like we always went to the city. We were a half hour outside of the city in New Jersey. So we're very close to New York. And she always wanted to live in New York. And she always wanted to live in the Butterfield House, which was on 12th Street. And she took classes at the new school.

She was always in the city. So it was just kind of like part of the deal. My father was completely eccentric. He had a jewelry store in Newark, New Jersey, that my grandfather started. And my mother started, she really was like, what should have been, she wanted to be a psychologist or psychiatrist, but it was in those days. You know, you raised your kids, you were in the suburbs.