“You can ask anything you want.” Thus begins my conversation with Richard Haines, better known as Designerman NYC, blogger extraordinaire behind What I Saw Today. Haines occupies a unique position in the blogosphere as one of its top illustrators—or should I say 'quick-draw artists', zing—and is known for impressionistic sketches that add an element of louche sophistication to whomever he's turned his eye onto. (He even drew me! Ah! That's the manliest I've ever looked, by far. You can see what I was wearing that day here.) Read on as Haines and I talk drawing, dating, and why Bushwick is where dreams come true...
FP: So I've read a little bit about your background in previous interviews you’ve done, but it’d be interesting to see what you think the importance of blogging is and where you think it’s going. The internet is obviously something you’ve been able to kind of leverage, especially...later in your career [laughter/nervous giggle].
RH: The twilight years?
Well you’re not Tavi, or…
I’m 61. It’s been five years now and I usually do this thing on my blog where I thank everyone, but I forgot to do it this year because I’ve been so busy. But that says a lot. I mean, I think for me, because I really remember life before the internet, this is all still kind of astounding and mind-blowing. That I could just start a blog, really with nothing…I mean, I had a scanner and a laptop, just like everyone else. And I was at a crossroads with my career as a designer...I wasn’t getting the work that I wanted. I had a small business making shirts and that was really floundering and I just thought, well, there’s no overhead in drawing and posting it. And I remember the first drawing I scanned and put up. It was an amazing thing to just have that ability to have my voice, unedited and out there where people could respond to it. And it’s really been like that ever since.
I feel like five years ago in the blogging game is such a difference, it's so dramatic. That’s the old guard, if you will. 2008 is worlds away. We have a girl at work who’s doing some illustrations and doing it all on an iPad with a stylus…the idea of drawing and scanning that in, I guess we may have done that a few years ago, but now? Have you ever thought about switching mediums?
I can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind—I mean, I’ve seen people do amazing things with digital and the possibility of it is really wonderful. But there’s something that just feels incredible to me about a charcoal pencil and a piece of paper that I can’t really duplicate. What I do is very basic, it’s very primal. But I kind of like that. It works for me.
I think it’s good that you have something that’s so...not off the grid, but offline. That’s so disconnected from constantly looking at a screen. A lot of photographers and people who are blogging constantly...it’s just incessant screen to face time. To be offline and to be disconnected is probably very healthy.
I mean, it’s healthy for me. I started drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil. Now the idea of scanning something and writing a caption and downloading it is just like, oh my god, that’s so much time, you know? I just want to shoot it and Instagram it. It’s amazing. And when I first started to blog, people would come and leave these lengthy comments and I would go to other people’s blogs…and that’s how it started, it was really viral. I would say, “I see you like fashion blogs, I just started a fashion blog, here’s my link.” And now the idea of people even leaving comments is this kind of charming and old school. Now it’s just like, ‘like.’ The attention span is really changing.
I think it’s because of the way people can have those conversations on social media now and connect online on so many platforms. You just don’t need to be leaving a blog comment anymore, it's just an endless stream.
I think Facebook changed that with the ‘Like’ button and Tumblr changed it because if you like it you’re just going to repost it. It eliminated a comment.
Do you think that it’s harder to start a dialogue, per se? Or have you found over the years that your feedback has changed at all?
No, people don’t leave comments on the blog but people still have a real need to connect. So now people connect with me through Facebook chat. People from all over the world talk to me through Facebook chat. It’s really amazing. Other illustrators, or students, or just people who like what I do. I don’t think people have really stopped connecting...or...
Reaching out?
Yeah, reaching out. Communicating. It’s just the format is different. If anything, contacting someone through Facebook chat is much more immediate than going through a blog.
And with your drawings, were you doing them as a designer? Do you think that kind of informed and directed your approach to this?
Everyone is a culmination of what they’ve done, and so my drawings I think have information in them that is informed by having worked with pattern makers. You know, I would give them flat sketches and say that I want the pocket here, and the button stance is there...so I kind of know that as an exact science, even though my drawing is certainly not exact. But I can kind of hit that with that precision.
I like that your style is more impressionistic.
When I was a kid there were very few ways of getting information. There was no internet and the easiest books to access were books on Toulouse-Lautrec and Monet and Picasso…especially Lautrec for me was kind of like, everything. When I was 10 and 11 I was just obsessed with the flat line and the graphicness and the idea of posters. It’s still a big influence for me.
And now you’re going to fashion week every season?
Yes, yes. It started like, 'Oh this is theater, I want to go and sketch this', and then it just started building. Now I go to most of the men’s shows...women’s is kind of harder to break into, though I’d like to. And then I was just in Europe.
And your bags are just filled with paper and charcoal everywhere you go?
Yeah. I mean, I always forget one thing, and it’s usually like...paper. Now I just buy moleskin books. There’s an interview on Mr. Porter where they asked all of these different people, well what do you bring? And it’s like...anti-depressants and charcoal pencils. Then for the rest you can just wing it.
Were you going to shows when you were designing?
A little. I was going more to fabric shows, like Premiere Vision in Paris, and all of that stuff kind of developed my eye over years and years. Then in the early eighties my best friend was the fashion editor for NY Mag and then he was at the Times for awhile, so he would go to the shows in Paris and a couple times my boss at the time sent me with him. It was Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler...these incredible shows. So I saw that and that was great. At the time it was really exciting...but now I look back and it’s like that’s fashion history.
But how relevant can it be in this age, when everyone has instant access, to be showing on a runway? Depending on who you are it is relevant to see that in person, but otherwise…
I think that a designer needs that platform to create and experiment and share their point of view. So I think that’ll always be valid. It’s amazing to watch.
I wonder if the shows have become watered down then? Maybe there’s just so much going on and so many people presenting that it can start to feel like we’re not having such heightened experiences.
There are still amazing presentations. The brands and designers feel the stakes are really high to make something memorable and something that’s recordable. The Raf Simons’ show was in this Gagosian space outside of Paris, an old airport hanger with a huge Calder the size of this room hanging there. And Kenzo was total theater...you know, the need for theatrics hasn’t diminished.
I’m wondering about your experiences as a gay man in that world. It’s especially interesting for me to see someone who is gay and a father in fashion and I wonder what that experience is like.
It’s always evolving and always changing. I think the biggest thing is to be a gay man and to be 61. That’s got its own set of challenges that no one who’s thirty thinks of, nor should they. You know, when I was thirty I didn’t think to myself, 'What am I going to be like at 61?', because that’s kind of the beauty of thirty. I just do what I do, and I don’t really think about it. I really love what I do and the fact that people seem to enjoy it. It’s one of the best times of my life right now it feels very vibrant and very alive. And my daughter, I think she’s proud of me, but she has her own life. And my attitude towards dating has changed. I approach it now the way I approach work, which is none of it’s personal. So it’s actually easier. The rejection or the whatever...the weirdness has kind of evaporated, because I don’t take it personally.
I guess that’s partly life in the city though. It would seem to me that taking things personally in NY...it’s not gonna...
Its devastating if you take it personally. Every person I talk to outside of New York is like, that is the hardest place to date. And I think that’s true, because there's such an abundance of eye candy that it always seems like there’s something better around the corner.
Yeah, I’ve heard that before, too. That when it comes to dating in new york, gay men are always like...if they have you, they’re wondering what’s next. What's the upgrade?
Yeah. Who’s better? What am I missing? I just have this vision of busloads of really adorable gay men being shipped in every day and like, dropped off and disseminated throughout the city. One of the other really great things about getting older—I hate that expression—is that there's a lot of acceptance, like self-acceptance. It’s just like, ‘I don’t know, maybe this person is ok for right now.’ Theres not that striving, which is a really great thing to let go of.
And how long have you been in the city? Have you been here forever? I mean for your whole career?
I moved here Christmas of '75. This morning I was looking at this video, a photographer documented Bushwick in the late seventies…there was a blackout in '77 and the city was just a shitshow with fires and looting. Bushwick was basically a pile of rubble after that. And I was looking at it and it was a jolt, because I remember New York like that. I remember parts of Manhattan like that. So, yeah, it’s really kind of...it’s very humbling to know I’ve been here that long and I remember what it was like.
And is Bushwick particularly special?
I lived in Manhattan up until...I’ve lived here for like, four years. As the economy unraveled and my work unraveled I just couldn’t afford the city. And a friend of mine let me sublet this place. So I came out here and it was like, 'Where the fuck am I? Why is the train above ground? Where can I buy french candles?' And then the first weekend I was here there was an all day concert on this empty lot. It was amazing and it was like, now I know why I’m supposed to be here. I’d stumbled upon this amazing art scene and this creativity and I felt like I had the opportunity to draw it.
And that was around the same time you started blogging.
And because I was just starting out it was easier than in Manhattan. All you need is the urge to do something. I love the people here who’ve started coffee shops, or galleries, or a restaurant, or a yoga studio. This guy who opened a yoga studio once said to me, “Bushwick is where dreams come true.” And we were kind of laughing, but it’s kind of true! He opened this amazing place and I’m sure on a shoestring. So you just need an idea and the balls to do it.
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