When he’s on set, Colin King has a few essentials he keeps in his back pocket. In addition to cutting shears and a microfiber cloth, he always has a lighter at the ready. “One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing unused candles with white tips in photographs,” says King, who has created stunning sets and imagery for some of the biggest names in interiors, including design firms Ashe Leandro and Roman + Williams, and has styled editorial campaigns for Zara Home and Crate & Barrel. “My job is to make the space the best version of itself.”
Although his career is rooted in making pretty pictures even prettier, King’s rise as one of the top interior stylists was built entirely through social media—specifically Instagram. He started off small as the social media manager at a midscale interior design firm in Los Angeles. Through building their following, King began to get more hands-on with his own storytelling. “I learned how to capture the intensity and nuances in each arrangement on my iPhone,” he says. “You have to leave space for the mystery of it all, whether it’s purposeful or through absentmindedness.”
Moving back to New York in 2017 afforded King the opportunity to go out on his own, as did his increasing social media following. “Someone once told me to look at Instagram like real estate, the more you post, the more you have,” he says, noting that every job he’s gotten since has been through a direct message on the social platform. “I use it as a visual inventory; a form of aesthetic expression.”
As his vision and style evolves, he looks for jobs that challenge him to be vulnerable. “When styling, I establish the narrative in my mind—what is the story that this combination of objects communicates?” He may never know exactly how the photo will turn out, but in the two years King has been working angles with objet d’art, he knows one thing for sure: To achieve creative freedom, he must abandon the idea of absolute perfection.
