Famous interior designer Nate Berkus, along with his fiancé, former Rachel Zoe employee Jeremiah Brent, are the stars of Banana Republic's newest campaign. The latest spring promotion, tilted “True Outfitters,” aims to illustrate “life's most precious and authentic moments shared between loved ones,” the company said in a statement.
With the help of Oprah Winfrey, as he frequently appears on her former hit show, and on her Network, Berkus has become the fresh face of homosexuality: upper-middle class, educated, preppy, seemingly monogamous, and unthreatening. In his book “The Things That Matter,” which focuses on Berkus’ art aesthetic and the various celebrity homes he decorated, he briefly recounts how he became first interested in interior design. In that short section, he writes glowingly of his mother, but only briefly of his father. It’s telling that he chose the following to explain their relationship:
“My parents split up when I was 2 years old. We were living in Los Angeles at the time, and after the divorce, my mother and I returned to Minnesota, where her parents lived, and where she eventually met and married my stepfather. Throughout my childhood, I would fly back to California to visit my dad, I was what the airlines called an “unaccompanied minor.” Over time I developed such precocious assurance that when the flight crew told me they could release me only to a parent or guardian. I would answer with all the breeziness of a 6-year old kid, ‘It’s okay, my father is meeting me downstairs. I know what to do.’ And then I’d go down the escalator, find my suitcase on the carousel, head outside the terminal, flag down my dad (or the driver he’d sometimes send), and that all there was to it. Today, when I tell this to friends with young children, their jaws drop and they say how fortunate I am that my face never graced the side of a milk carton.”
“My parents split up when I was 2 years old. We were living in Los Angeles at the time, and after the divorce, my mother and I returned to Minnesota, where her parents lived, and where she eventually met and married my stepfather. Throughout my childhood, I would fly back to California to visit my dad, I was what the airlines called an “unaccompanied minor.” Over time I developed such precocious assurance that when the flight crew told me they could release me only to a parent or guardian. I would answer with all the breeziness of a 6-year old kid, ‘It’s okay, my father is meeting me downstairs. I know what to do.’ And then I’d go down the escalator, find my suitcase on the carousel, head outside the terminal, flag down my dad (or the driver he’d sometimes send), and that all there was to it. Today, when I tell this to friends with young children, their jaws drop and they say how fortunate I am that my face never graced the side of a milk carton.”
Even to the unsophisticated or untrained observer, what we have here is a lonely and lost little boy; wandering through a crowded airport at an age when most kids are just learning how to ride a bike – lovingly guided and watched over by their fathers. In his teenage years, Nate described himself as: “I…was a triple Virgo: frighteningly organized and utterly meticulous.” This is a typical reaction in the young male to early childhood feelings of alienation and neglect: the need to overly seclude and protect themselves, control their surroundings, and seek perfection in the everyday. This manifests itself most clearly in the gay male obsession with outward physical appearance, the solidity and clean-lines of the Art Deco period, and the fantasy-driven images of Hollywood. Because boys such as Berkus failed to bond with their fathers, they seek all of these things, and solidify them into the image of the elusive male. It’s a desperate attempt to heal a woundedness, and fulfill a longing, that they cannot explain. In contemporary society, these boys are told that they are gay; when, in fact, they are simply aching for love. Berkus is almost a definitive example. For, tragically, even with his stepfather there was a disconnect. When he finally came out, the stepfather of Berkus said that he already suspected as much. He said: “It’s been hard for me to be a stepparent to you, because frankly, I’ve found it hard to relate to you.”