Spencer Bailey (born August 18, 1985) is an American writer, editor, journalist, podcast host, cultural commentator, and entrepreneur. He has written at length about architecture, art, culture, and design, among other subjects.
Early life
Bailey was born and raised in Denver, Colorado.
United Airlines Flight 232
On July 19, 1989, a month before his fourth birthday, Bailey survived the crash landing of United Airlines Flight 232 in Sioux City, Iowa. His brother Brandon also survived, but their mother, Frances, was one of the 112 passengers who died. Bailey's twin brother, Trent, and their father, Brownell, were not on the plane.
Bailey is the subject of a famous photograph by Gary Anderson showing Lt. Colonel Dennis Nielsen carrying him to safety.
Education
Bailey graduated from Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut, in 2004. He received a B.A. in English from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 2008 and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2010. He wrote his Dickinson College thesis about Philip Larkin as a jazz poet.
In 2009, he was a student in a fiction-writing seminar taught by Gordon Lish.
Career
2009–2010: Early work
In 2009 and 2010, Bailey interned in the editorial departments at Esquire and Vanity Fair. Over the next three years, he interviewed authors, celebrities, politicians, and cultural figures such as Tony Hawk, Rodney King, Cyndi Lauper, Yoko Ono, and Al Sharpton for a "How to ..." column.
2010–2018: Surface Media
From May to August 2010, Bailey worked at The Daily Beast, and in September 2010 he was hired as assistant editor at Surface magazine. Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Ian Schrager, and Kanye West, and created the Design Dialogues conversation series. Bailey's interview with West, published in the December 2016/January 2017 issue, was covered internationally. Billboard called it "thoughtful."
In 2017, Bailey was named the editorial director of Surface Media. In 2018, he announced he was leaving Surface Media.
2018–Present: The Slowdown
In 2018, Bailey was named a contributing editor at Town & Country, where he covers architecture and design, and joined the book publisher Phaidon as editor-at-large.
In 2019, with Andrew Zuckerman, Bailey co-founded the media company The Slowdown, which produces the Time Sensitive podcast and an email newsletter, and operates an "editorial studio." In 2023, Bailey became the sole owner of the company.
On Time Sensitive, Bailey interviews leading minds across culture, including artists, architects, chefs, journalists, musicians, poets, scientists, and writers, with guests including fashion designer Gabriela Hearst, author and translator Jhumpa Lahiri, poet and playwright Claudia Rankine, architect John Pawson, and artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. From 2020 to 2023, The Slowdown also produced the At a Distance podcast, co-hosted by Bailey, which in 2021 was turned into a book, At a Distance: 100 Visionaries at Home in a Pandemic; guests on the show included Bill McKibben, Tatiana Schlossberg, Suzanne Simard, Rebecca Solnit, and Bessel van der Kolk.
In October 2020, Phaidon published Bailey’s book In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials, which features more than 60 memorials commemorating some of the most destructive events of the 20th and 21st centuries, including war, genocide, massacre, terrorism, famine, and slavery. The book was named a Literary Hub "favorite book of the year" and a Financial Times "best book of 2020."
In 2024, The Leading Hotels of the World announced that it had named Bailey as the editor-in-chief of a five-year, five-volume book series, with The Slowdown overseeing the editorial direction of the entire project.
Bibliography
- Tham ma da: The Adventurous Interiors of Paola Navone (Pointed Leaf Press, 2016)
- In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials (Phaidon, 2020)
- Design: The Leading Hotels of the World (Monacelli, 2024)
- Culture: The Leading Hotels of the World (Monacelli, 2025)
- Explore: The Leading Hotels of the World (Monacelli, 2026)