Episode 12: Mitch Owens

Handle with Care

In this episode of Handle with Care, hosts Adam Sharla-Pyman and Laura Kugel interview design historian Mitch Owens about the concept of 'ghos

Key takeaways

• Mitch Owens discusses the hyper-detailed watercolors of Alexander and Katya Serebriakov, which serve as precise records of 20th-century European interiors.
• The concept of 'ghost chasing' is defined as seeking objects to establish a spiritual or energetic connection with previous owners.
• Adam Sharla-Pyman served as the Guest Editor for the recent issue of Antiques magazine.
• The episode explores how the history of ownership, such as items belonging to Pauline de Rothschild, can enhance a collector's identity.
• The Serebriakov siblings' work is noted for its 'insurance adjuster' level of detail, capturing every object within a room.

Main topics

• Ghost chasing and provenance
• Antiques magazine
• Serebriakov watercolorists

Notable quotes

You're part of the story, but you're not the story.

Conclusion

The episode provides a deep, soulful perspective on how collecting is

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:07) Hi everyone, this is Laura Kugel. And Speaker 2 (0:09) this is Adam Sharla-Pyman. Welcome to Handle With Care, the podcast you didn't know you needed about curtains, chairs, lamps, and ghosts. Today Speaker 1 (0:19) we're here with Mitch Owens, design historian, editor, and writer. Mitch has held senior positions at the World of Interiors, Architectural Digest, and Elle Decor, and has written articles in the New York Times, Travel and Leisure, and Town and Country, among others. He is an inspiration of ours and a highly respected authority in the world of decorative arts and design history. We are recording with Mitch on the occasion of the release of the September-October 2026 issue of the magazine Antiques, for which Adam has served as guest editor, the same magazine where Mitch held position as editor-in-chief and continues contributing to today. Speaker 2 (0:52) In my issue for the magazine Antiques, the feature articles delve into a decorating approach we are calling ghost chasing, the act of hunting down objects that once belonged to people with whom you desire a sort of spiritual or energetic contact. The writers within the issue, including both Mitch on the Cerebriakovs and Laura on Taxildoa, share a sensibility, a gift, for detecting and finding meaning from the provenance of an object or an interior, the evidence of someone's taste that survives them. Mitch is a ghost chaser in every sense of the word. He is obsessed with uncovering the stories behind an object and carrying them forward for today. For my issue, he wrote about Alexandra and Catherine Serebriakov, the Russian artists and decorators who watercolored hundreds of the most important interiors from the 20th century, mostly in France. Mitch's article looked specifically at a few of the watercolors owned by his friend Jean-Louis Remillieu, a ghost chaser in his own right. Seeing these watercolors was very formative for me. and Laura has her own special connection to them. We are so thrilled to be here today with Mitch to discuss ghost chasing, the Cerebriacops, and the Magazine Antiques' unique position in the world of shelter magazines. So Speaker 1 (2:01) enjoy the conversation and hurry up and order your own copy of Adam's edition of the Magazine Antiques. Welcome to our podcast, Mitch. I'm so excited to have with me today two editors of the magazine Antiques, not just one. Speaker 3 (2:15) Thank you very much. Adam, it's a beautiful issue. That cover is fantastic. Did you get a chance to read my article about the bat? I did. I've read it cover to cover. Fabulous. Speaker 2 (2:30) I Speaker 1 (2:30) have two things that I wanted to start with. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the magazine Antiques, you know, to describe. where it stands in the world of art and interiors magazine. And then I wanted to ask Adam about his theme for the issue. I Speaker 3 (2:44) think it's a magazine that lives in people's minds. I mean, they know about it. They know it exists. But it's sort of Speaker 2 (2:52) a Speaker 3 (2:52) secret in a weird Speaker 2 (2:53) way. Yeah. The way that I have been describing it to people that aren't really familiar with it is to say that it's like... the paper of record for the antiques community. It Speaker 3 (3:07) is the magazine of record. For many years, for more than a century, it's been around. I think it was the only magazine for a long time that had footnotes, so that everybody knew that the scholarship was undeniable. Speaker 2 (3:27) There was actual meat on the bones. Right. And it wasn't a decorating magazine, certainly. No, not Speaker 3 (3:34) at all. But there is that intersection because it's objects, which decorating is nothing without the objects within that room. That's why I find it boring to read architecture magazines, decorative arts magazines, because decorating is really all three Speaker 2 (3:57) of those things together. Totally. And when I was working on it, the thing that crystallized for me was that something that I've been missing in a lot of interior design magazines is interiors where objects are very important. I remember an old boss of mine, he would use as a pejorative the term styling. Like he would say, oh, that's just styling or decorating mags are all just styling these days. And I think in putting this together, I really understood what he meant in looking for spaces that are built around the power of objects rather than interiors where objects are either a final touch or an afterthought just included for an overall stylistic composition. It was a different project than looking for stylish rooms, let's say, to put in a magazine. Speaker 3 (4:55) It's very true. And I've never denigrated stylists in any way because they make a picture beautiful. They make a composition eye-catching. When you live with objects, when you have the objects, you don't necessarily have a stylist's input. It's more about loving the object. It's not really about putting the objects together to make it beautiful. They exist on their Speaker 2 (5:25) own. They have their own stories. Right. And actually, we wanted to interview you and have this conversation for a long time. And then organically, you floated to the top of the list, both because of Antiques Magazine, but also because of our interview with Ralph Rucci. He was amazing, and he's so inspiring. In that interview, we were able to really talk with him about... the way that he understands a soulfulness in objects. And he told us about your sort of shared passion for the taste of Pauline de Rothschild and that you own some things that belongs to her. Well, we both do. Speaker 3 (6:07) And I think it's more of an obsession than it is a passion. But really, when it comes to objects, I've always been... attracted to the stories of things. That's something that I learned from not only Ralph, but also Louis Bofferting, who's really an art historian. So that everything I look at in Louis' shop has a story. And he's pissed me down and talks about it and talks about the materials, how it was made. But then it... It quickly jumps into who owned it. Why did they own it? Where did they put it? And you realize, as Louis has taught me, you're part of the story, but you're not the story. That object is going on to somebody else. Totally. Speaker 1 (7:04) It's interesting, Adam, because you talk about the