BRITT:  I’m Aaron Britt and my title at Dwell is Editor. I’ve been with the magazine for nearly three years now, though I was a freelancer for the magazine when I lived in Washington DC. My duties include assigning and editing stories, writing for the magazine, giving talks and lectures, contributing to dwell.com, and generally making sure that the editorial voice of the brand remains compelling, engaging and consistent. Naturally I have group of really bright and charming colleagues who do the same things, so I’m hardly alone in all that goes on around here.

I graduated from Amherst College in 2003 with a BA in English, went to France to teach English for a year afterward, and then moved to DC once I was done there. In DC I worked as a writer for a TV production company called JWM Productions on a handful of shows on Animal Planet, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. I also worked as William Safire’s researcher for his On Language column in the New York Times Magazine. I’ve written the column a couple times and done freelance writing for Wired Magazine, Newsweek, Print Magazine, Afar Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington City Paper. In November of 2008 I started writing The Pocket Square, which is the men’s style column in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Without slagging off my colleagues, who are really fun and cool, I love any assignment that gets me out of the office. I get a real charge out of wandering around looking at buildings and objects. So I guess my big trips for Dwell might be my favorites. Norway was amazing, as was Seoul, the Madgalen Islands in the St. Lawrence Gulf, a design tour of Switzerland I took in April, and a recent week I spent in Melbourne. I’ve gotten to see some amazing places and some great architecture in my travels. That said, I spent this morning over looking at the old Mint in San Francisco to see how they’re going to transform it into a new museum dedicated to telling stories about the Bay Area and that was great too. I don’t have to go far to enjoy myself.

Like nearly every publication we’ve been hit by the recession and shifting business models and all the rest of it. The magazine isn’t nearly as long as it used to be, and we have less room to play around in. So that’s been tough, because sometimes those more left-field stories are really fun to produce. The upside of the downturn, however, has been a real and sustained investment in dwell.com. Each of us on staff contributes to the website and I think it’s safe to say that we are presently leaps and bounds ahead of many other print publications in terms of our web presence. There is loads of content, both original and from the book, up on dwell.com and we really view it as an integral part of the brand. It’s also that place where some of our ideas that used to make it into print appear. It’s still a platform that we’re figuring out, like most folk, but I think we have a lot to show for our work.

Dwell editor-in-chief, Sam Grawe

Special happenings? Our December/January issue is a first for us. It’s The Future, and breaks from our standard format. That one is pretty cool.

My men’s style column in the San Francisco Chronicle is called The Pocket Square and I’ve been writing it since November 2008, so it’s just a year old. For me the goal is to discuss style, as opposed to fashion. I’m really not that interested in micro-trends or what someone at YSL thinks is going to be hot this season. It also has a fairly local focus, as it is in a newspaper, and I guess my hobby horses tend to be tailoring, and classic American style. I really view myself more as a critic and enthusiast than someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of fashion. I’m a reporter, really. A reporter who likes style. EM: What items do you consider wardrobe staples?

It may seem silly, but I really like to wear red, white and blue. I find myself drawn to that combination all the time. I don’t think when I dress that way that it reads as some flag-waving costume (I hope it doesn’t anyway) but I think in terms of a cool, slightly sporty and somewhat refined palate it works really well. As for wardrobe staples, I have one pair of Levi’s I wear all the time and a small stable of sportsshirts and jackets. I like tweed jackets a lot. And I always tuck in my shirt.

I have a Donegal tweed jacket which belonged to a friend’s late father. He wore it during his Oxford days in the late 60s and I think of him whenever I wear it. I didn’t know him terribly well, but he was a accomplished and intellectual man whom I admired him very much. He was an ambassador under Clinton and was even the mayor of Portland, Maine at one point. I don’t have a lot of garments from my own father or grandfather, so this sense of lineage is one that I really like. I envy those who have it. But as my wife is best friends with John’s daughter I feel like the jacket belonged to an uncle or father-in-law or something like that. I love the jacket, and I love imagining John wearing it. He was a really handsome guy and I’m sure he filled it out well.

EM: Who are your biggest style influences?

Gosh. I don’t know. I like the way Robin Givhan writes about style in the Washington Post. I’d say that if there’s one style writer I most look up to, it’s her. But she’ll tell you straight away that she’s a reporter too. She just happened to get the fashion beat. She also won a Pulitzer for criticism a couple years ago. I was so pumped.

I’d always liked it, though never really set out to write about it. I was having lunch with an editor at the paper one day and she said that they’d never had the men’s style coverage that they wanted and asked if I was interested. I said half-facetiously, sure, why don’t you give me a column? And she said okay. I was stunned, but tried hard not to look it.

Perks are not for newspaper hacks. No freebies, no trips, no latenight gossip sessions with Robert Geller or anything like that. Just lousy pay and the ego-stroke of seeing your name in print. It’s fun though. And people immediately assume you know what you’re talking about. So I guess the only real perk is a small dash of prestige. Which never hurts.

Favorite author, man that’s hard. I’ll give you the shortlist: Cervantes (DQ is the best novel out there) Philip Roth Gerard Manley Hopkins Milan Kundera (early and middle) DH Lawrence (I love how crazy he gets toward the end) WG Sebald Roberto Bolano Louis Menand John Updike (the Rabbit series particularly) Thomas Mann Evelyn Waugh