the salting SPOTLIGHT: Genevieve Gorder

ts: What is your favorite season?

gg: My favorite season has got to be summer. I was born in the summer. I'm a Leo (if the hair didn't give it away!)I love water – being in the ocean or a lake. The sun, linen, no makeup, and really fresh fruit. Ugh. But it's that Mediterranean moment when you hear the cicadas, the lavender blowing, and you're by the Mediterranean, I don't know if there's a better feeling in life.  That's part of my DNA too, so I guess that all makes sense.

ts: What is your favorite film?

gg: My favorite film. I actually just re-watched, which is wild to revisit things from like the 90s/early 2000s because the pacing is so different. We had so much more attention back then, but my favorite movie is Amelie. It's a quirky French film with Audrey Tatou, who is a waitress in Paris, and she is just this mischievous little thing. We are the exact same age, so it hit me when I was 23. This was a very new way of shooting film. It was pre-Wes Anderson being a big deal. The film is quirky, many zoom-ins, crazy angles, brilliant colors, and sets that were just maximalized. I loved her character – she helped people in fun, mischievous ways, and messed with the people who needed to be punished. Brilliant. Amelie is a little “slow” now. I re-watched it with my daughter in 2026 and she was like, “It's really good, Mom but a little slow.”

ts: What inspires you?

gg: That's a big question. Inspiration for me is constantly changing, which is a good thing. I don’t have a textbook answer:  “these are my inspirations”. I ask myself this question a lot. It's honestly just paying attention to what you're doing in life and what is giving you incredible joy, whether it's from a bowl of soup to a walk down the street to a huge, amazing trip across the world. It's collecting those moments where you're like, ah, yes, what? What is this? All those sensual moments where you kind of get stabbed in the gut and heart. Those are the things you have to record, whether you write them down or you just stash them in memory, because they all help you create. You want to feel those feelings again, whether it's the best bite of food, the best massage, the best trip you've ever had, or the moment you get into the water in the most beautiful place you've ever seen. These are all important moments that inspire me. And they're constantly happening. What inspired me at 22 doesn't necessarily inspire me at 51.

ts: What are your 3 favorite cities?

gg: Oh, God, that's really hard, you guys. This is so hard. I was just charting all the places I've been. I’m very grateful to have seen so much of the world. I have some heavy hitters, and for different reasons: For relaxation, it's one thing, but for design, it's another. So for design, my treasure chests are Morocco – Marrakesh specifically – just everything you could want as a designer. The visuals are so over the top. You just have to harvest and hold on. Mexico is another one of those treasure chests. Wherever there are big, bold, brilliant colors, there also seems to be a lot of makers in tandem. Mexico, Morocco, and India. Those 3 are like my design belt. As far as where I go to feel perhaps the happiest in my body, in my life, it is southern Europe, Mediterranean. Half of my family is from Croatia. So there is a little bit of a connection there. A cellular connection. So Adriatic specifically, like Dubrovnik, outside of that, Portula, I love Puglia. And then the wild islands of Greece. I went to Milos a while ago, and now it feels a little bit overdiscovered. So I don't know if I'll go back, but I love it so much. I need raw nature, warm air, and a brilliancy. So that's where I always end up. 

ts: What is your proudest moment thus far in your career?

gg: That's really hard. I'm proud of just the whole arc. Coming into television when no one was doing transformation, creating a movement with 6 other strangers, that became a multi-billion dollar industry. I'm very proud of that. That 1st big show, Trading Spaces, was something you can't really plan. It was lightning in a bottle, and it changed television. And it changed design in a really big way. It was a movement, not just a show. One can not plan to make a movement, it just happened. I'm also very proud of working with the Obamas and the Bidens over the course of 8 years decorating for the holidays at the White House. That was a big deal. Proud of that.

ts: What's the best advice you have ever received? 

gg: I've received brilliant advice in the many eras of my life. But once, my grandmother told me, after a really terrible breakup, (a boyfriend did a terrible thing to me and hurt me very deeply). I was just around 24-25, she said, “Genevieve, sometimes silence is the most powerful voice”. Now, I'm a communicator who tends to overly communicate, (especially in my 20s!) This was such a brilliant piece of advice because so many people just need validation that what they did wasn't that bad. Or that they're still okay and you still think of them fondly, and just going silent, boy. That was powerful. I learned a brilliant lesson from that. Listening is sometimes more powerful than talking.

ts:  How do you erase hate from everyday life?

gg: Oh, I like this last question. You know, I think I'm wired just a little bit differently. Yes, things can hurt me. People hurt me. But hate is so basic to me. It's where you operate and how you communicate when you are unhappy, when you don't have the words, when you don't have the experiences, when you haven't seen enough beauty, when you can't connect to people in a sociable or enjoyable way. So when hate gets thrown at you, because we all get it online, especially when you're in the public eye, you get it. I don't hold it. I don't have space for it. And I know that's probably not the answer you want, but I've always kind of operated from a big place of light, and I think that's a lot of how you are wired: from your family, what they contributed, and how they supported you. But my wire was connected before I had a personality. It was... It's the light, the sun. I stay there. I know how to enjoy really good food. …..I see the bad food. I don't want it. I don't need it. And it's still there. But I don't indulge. Like, “you do you”. You gotta be like that. I feel sorry for you. Ask a question instead of telling everyone how to do everything from your POV without context. It's easy to be an armchair hater. But for me, it's really basic, really basic low frequency shit. I don't do it.

photographed in NYC by dimitri hyacinthe