The strange piece of art that hangs over the bed. The well-organized sneaker collection. Artifacts -- sinfully expensive or of sentimental value -- from all over the world. The things you find in other people's homes spark the imagination, inspire one's own design efforts, and speak volumes about the character, dreams, and essence of the residents. Over the past years, Welt am Sonntag visited the homes of creative workers, artists, and style influencers all over the world and shared them with us via home stories: the daughter of design icon Verner Panton, the son of the legendary artist, Fornasetti, an attorney with a mania for collecting, a jewelry designer in London, an American hairstylist to the stars, and Berlin's most controversial architect. Instead of high-gloss photography productions where every object is carefully placed at the correct angle in order to showcase "perfect" taste, the images here are intimate encounters on familiar terrain that give us insight into unexplored worlds: private, curious, and eccentric. Style experts and co-authors, Adriano Sack and Dagmar von Taube, have compiled these visual short stories into a fascinating photo volume that is a wonderful source of ideas for your own home -- the Mick Jagger portrait by Andy Warhol above the fireplace mantle, the vase you sculpted and fired yourself, and the terribly impractical gigantic sculpture in the dining room that just make life better. In other words, do try this at home!
About the Author: Adriano Sack is an author and head of the style department at Welt am Sonntag. He lived in New York for several years, where he wrote books, founded the Internet platform and magazine ilikemystyle, drank too much tequila with artist Terence Koh in his brilliantly white studio, and talked about German expressionism with Tom Wolfe. His books have been translated into numerous languages. He moved back to Berlin in 2011 and finds the city much better than its reputation would suggest. Hamburg native Dagmar von Taube has called Berlin home for years. As chief reporter for Welt am Sonntag, she meets the great and special people of our time, from Hillary Clinton to Roman Polanski, and creates portraits of them in incisive interviews. She fought about kitsch with Jeff Koons and was invited by Eliette von Karajan to her house in Saint Tropez for three days, where von Karajan welcomed von Taube with goulash in 100- degree weather. Madame then disappeared into her seawater pool -- stark naked. The interview began. Von Taube was a correspondent in New York; on the side, she packed gift baskets for stars like Aretha Franklin at highend grocer Dean & Deluca. In 2009, teNeues published her photo book Berlin Now.