Amy Astley, Tory BurchNeil Rasmus/BFA.com
“I would say Amy is one of the few people who could get me to stand on a 30-foot ladder holding a pair of garden shears,” Tory Burch told us with a laugh last night. “You work on your home for so long, but to have people see it in a different way in the magazine is so special after all of the layering and storytelling we do over time.”
After nine years at the helm of Architectural Digest, persuading the likes of Burch—and many more—to open the doors to their beautiful homes, Amy Astley has plenty of tales to share. They’ve now come together in a new book, AD at Home, celebrated last night at the Tory Burch SoHo boutique. Inside the Rizzoli-published work, readers find a curated selection of greatest hits from Astley’s tenure, including the 2017 cover in which Burch is posed atop a ladder beside the towering hedges of her Hamptons home.
“This project is really about showing great people at home,” Astley told Vogue before taking a seat to sign copies of the tome for friends and fans including Aerin Lauder, Huma Abedin, and Jordan Roth. “There are no anonymous houses, no architectural feats, no museums—just great people in their homes. So it’s a lot of my favorite people and my favorite houses—like Tory Burch, like Margherita Missoni, like Alicia Keys, like Claudia Schiffer. They’re the people who I feel have the life force, and their house is memorable and special and really encapsulates their style, and I’m just proud that so many people let us invade their private space and record it forever for posterity.”
Between the store’s canopy of layered rattan baskets and a dazzling cake adorned with sugared cherries in the shape of the AD logo, guests couldn’t help but feel right at home in a space that took clear cues from Burch’s own interiors. In the back garden, AD’s market director Madeline O’Malley donned a Tory Burch runway confection with mirrored paillettes flashing like a disco ball in the late-evening sun. “I think the book really captures the essence of Amy’s AD,” O’Malley said. “There’s personality, style, and surprise, and it gives those of us who may or may not be confined to our studio apartments something to dream about!”
Later, partygoers carried on to Genesis House in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District for a celebratory dinner hosted by Alina Cho. While dining on the Michelin-starred Korean menu, the crowd reminisced about photo shoots and stories gone by as they thumbed through the book’s pages—before inevitably plotting the next chapter of showstopping issues to come.
