Category: Martha Martha Martha

Please enjoy this piece in Town & Country appreciating Martha Stewart’s Instagram account: All Hail Martha Stewart’s Big Quarantine Energy.

As the kids say, we stan Martha in this household, and I’ve followed her on Instagram for years. But her account has been particularly good during lockdown and I’m happy to see it getting the press it deserves:

Martha is unapologetic in her approach to this crisis—as she is in all things. […] There’s no false modesty about her resources, no smug odes to how blessed she is, no glibness about the importance of self-care.

Martha is not trying to influence me. She’s not suggesting I order a Tonal or start raising baby geese or plant half a dozen daffodil varietals in order to be more like Martha Stewart. It is quite obvious to everyone that that there can be only one Martha Stewart.

A few years ago I wrote about how much I love Martha Stewart and said this: “When I mention I’m a fan, most people respond with, ‘She went to jail,’ like it might be news to me or make me recycle those magazine back issues.”

I chalked that up to people not being true fans like I was, or not knowing about everything else she did because the jail time got so much coverage. But this article finally sums up why that response bothers me so much: The Martha Stewarting of Powerful Women: How society disproportionately demonizes women after they’ve bent the same rules that men have always broken.

The entire article, by Ann Foster, is fire–going from Martha to Joan of Arc (!) and beyond–but this pretty much sums up the problem:

For a man to fail as a king, president, or CEO through wrongdoings is so commonplace as to be insignificant; in fact, the patriarchal system supports these men as they fall, leaving doors open for them to regain their former level of power. For a woman to ascend to these roles is novel enough, rare enough, that when they display the same fallibility or criminal activity, they dominate the news cycle for months. This when we reach peak Martha Stewarting: the particular schadenfreude expressed at the public shaming of powerful women behaving badly; the way that women who misbehave are treated as representatives for the entire gender and shamed far more than men would be for the same actions.

I’ve been a fan of Martha Stewart since she had her TV show in the mid-90s, which I’d watch every morning on summer vacation from school. I’ve subscribed to (and kept–the back issues  survived Kon Mari) her magazine since 2003. Because of Martha I own a punch bowl, know how to wash cashmere, and can fold a fitted sheet.

When I mention I’m a fan, most people respond with, “She went to jail,” like it might be news to me or make me recycle those magazine back issues. However, I’m at the level of “irrational brand loyalty” where that doesn’t even matter. I usually respond to those people with something along the lines of, “She’s a self made woman and built an empire based on good taste, and I really respect that,” but I wasn’t able to articulate what I really loved about her until I saw something in her latest book.

That book, Martha’s Entertaining, is pretty ridiculous (and awesome). I imagine that she told her team, “F**k it, I’m tired of trying to be relatable. Let’s do a book that shows how rich I really am.” It’s beautifully shot, of course, and shows how she entertains in her many homes. For the Christmas spread, the chapter started with this photo:

 

The caption starting with “Opposite” (click to enlarge) is the key, though:

She made the nativity set in the first photo while in jail. And she made it to match her collection of china and she now displays it in her home.  At first, it seems like just another ridiculous thing for Martha to do–but it made me realize what I love about her brand:

No matter how or where you live, no matter how much money you have, you can be creative and find something to do to make your home look nicer and make your life more gracious.

And that’s why I love Martha Stewart.