STUFF: A New York Life of Cultural Chaos

"I am a fanatical collector and curator of 'stuff' and have always cared about my everyday choices to the point of insanity. My taste for everything I surround myself with ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous.... After decades of obsessive collecting and brutal editing, I came to realize that the objects I chose to keep told the best stories of my pretty crazy life so far." - Kim

Kim Hastreiter isn't just a collector—she's an alchemist of the ordinary, transforming the everyday into extraordinary narrative. As co-founder of Paper magazine, she's spent half a century curating a kaleidoscopic universe where objects become characters in cultural storytelling. This volume invites you into her wonderfully chaotic mind, where boundaries between art, fashion, design, and life beautifully dissolve.

In these pages, you'll meet Hastreiter's network of friends: attending late-night gatherings in an East Village church with Keith Haring, viewing private art at Jeffrey Deitch's space, or having impromptu drinks at Trader Vic's with Salvador Dalí and Joey Arias.

When Wms&Co. co-founder Allison's post-college journey led her to Paper magazine, she found herself drawn into Kim's creative ecosystem. Weekends spent in design and paste-up at Kim's apartment became an unconventional education, surrounded by a magnetic constellation of remarkable people and objects that defied categorization.

Stuff transcends conventional memoir format. It's a visual carnival ride through cultural rebellion and artistic innovation—a love letter to New York's creative underbelly and a masterclass in seeing possibility where others see only objects. For anyone who believes that collecting isn't just accumulation but curation of one's own life story, this book is your manifesto.