Spencer Bailey is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the media company The Slowdown and host of the Time Sensitive podcast. He is also the editor-at-large of the book publisher Phaidon.
A writer, editor, and journalist, he has written at length about architecture, art, culture, design, and technology, and contributed to publications such as Town & Country, The New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune, and Newsweek. From 2013 to 2018, he was the editor-in-chief of Surface magazine. He is the author of the books Alchemy: The Material World of David Adjaye (Phaidon, 2023), In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials (Phaidon, 2020), and Tham ma da: The Adventurous Interiors of Paola Navone (Pointed Leaf Press, 2016), as well as the co-author of At a Distance: 100 Visionaries at Home in a Pandemic (Apartamento, 2021).
Bailey has spoken at or moderated live talks at venues including the Aspen Ideas Festival, Cannes Lions, and the 92nd Street Y, and has been on the juries of the Hyères Design Parade festival, the CFDA Fashion Awards, the James Beard Restaurant Design Awards, the Rado Star Prize, and the Swarovski Designers of the Future Award. He has taught a workshop in the Design Research master’s program at the School of Visual Arts. In 2023, he was named to the Wallpaper USA 300 list of “talents that are forging new paths through America’s design landscape.”
Bailey is also the co-chair of the board of trustees of the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York, and serves on the New York honorary committee of L’École, School of Jewelry Arts, which is supported by Van Cleef & Arpels.
Born and raised in Colorado, he is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Dickinson College. He lives in New York City.
Portrait: Ogata