Spencer Bailey is an American writer, editor, and journalist. He has written at length about architecture, art, culture, design, and technology, among other subjects.
Early life
Bailey was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He grew up with his brothers Brandon and Trent in a single-parent household.
On July 19, 1989, a month before his fourth birthday, Bailey survived the crash landing of United Airlines Flight 232 in Sioux City, Iowa. His brother Brandon also survived the crash, but their mother, Frances, was one of the 111 passengers who died. Bailey's brother Trent and their father, Brownell, were not on the plane. Bailey is the subject of a famous photograph by Gary Anderson showing Lt. Colonel Dennis Nielsen carrying him to safety. A statue based on the picture is part of the Flight 232 Memorial in Sioux City's riverfront development.
From January to May 2009, Bailey interned at Esquire. From January to May 2010, while studying at Columbia, he interned at Vanity Fair.
2010–2014: ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', ''The New York Times Magazine''
From 2010 to 2013, Bailey was a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek, and from 2011 to 2014, The New York Times Magazine. For his first assignment for The New York Times Magazine, in October 2011, he spent a night at Zucotti Park and a nearby McDonald's during the Occupy Wall Street movement. Over the next three years, he interviewed authors, celebrities, politicians, and cultural figures such as Al Sharpton, Tony Hawk, Rodney King, and Cyndi Lauper for a "How To..." column. Bailey's interview with Rodney King was one of King's last before his fiancée found him dead at the bottom of a swimming pool.
From May to August 2010, Bailey worked at The Daily Beast, and in September 2010 he was hired as assistant editor at Surface magazine. In June 2013, at age 27, Bailey became editor-in-chief of Surface. With the July/August 2013 issue—Bailey’s first as editor—the magazine unveiled a major design overhaul created with the consultancy Noë & Associates. At Surface, Bailey interviewed hundreds of leading architects, artists, designers, and cultural figures, including David Adjaye, Tadao Ando,, Zaha Hadid, Ian Schrager, and Kanye West, and helped launch the Design Dialogues conversation series. He conducted nearly 40 Design Dialogues talks from 2013 to 2018, including conversations with Michael Kimmelman and Annabelle Selldorf, Stefan Sagmeister and Jeffrey Deitch, and David Rockwell and Marcel Wanders. Prior to Bailey taking over as editor of Surface, the magazine was known for covering the "design world"; he pivoted it to covering the worldthrough the lens of design, to appeal to a wider audience. Several Surface interviews by Bailey garnered significant media attention, such as his conversation with real estate developerAby Rosen, published in the June/July 2014 issue, in which Rosen called Tom Wolfe a "buffoon." Bailey's interview with Kanye West, published in the December 2016/January 2017 issue, was covered internationally. Page Six described the conversation between Bailey and West "strange"; Billboard called it "thoughtful." In November 2016, Pointed Leaf Press published the book Tham ma da: The Adventurous Interiors of Paola Navone, which Bailey wrote and edited. In January 2017, Bailey was named editorial director of Surface Media. In May 2018, Bailey announced he was leaving Surface Media.
2018–Present: ''Town & Country'', Phaidon, The Slowdown
In July 2018, Bailey was named a contributing editor at Town & Country, where he covers architecture and design. In October 2018, he joined the book publisher Phaidon as editor-at-large. In May 2019, Bailey co-founded and launched the media company The Slowdown with filmmaker, photographer, and creative directorAndrew Zuckerman. The Slowdown focuses on culture, nature, and the future, and produces a weekly newsletter exploring the five senses, as well as two podcasts, Time Sensitive and At a Distance, which Bailey and Zuckerman co-host. On Time Sensitive, Bailey has interviewed guests including Teresita Fernández, Neri Oxman, David Duchovny, Rashid Johnson, and Suketu Mehta.
Bailey is a proponent for “Slow Design,” or, as he has put it, “design that’s timeless and made to last, and done thoughtfully, with intent, and with care for our planet.” Bailey has also advocated for “Slow Media.” “We need media that allows people to slow down, to turn inward, and to think about things on a deeper level,” he told Directions magazine in 2018.
