It’s Gia Seo’s Maximalist World and We’re Just Living in It

It’s a sunny Saturday in Brooklyn, and I’m internally combusting while placing shoes on Gia Seo's perfectly made bed. The fashion intern and the clean freak in me are screaming in perfect unison as I lay a pair of fluorescent orange embellished Dior sneakers on a zebra pillow. But Gia’s unfazed. In fact, she’s sitting in the middle of her bed, arms wide open, ready to be covered in some of her most eye-catching shoes. Earl, her highly opinionated cat, is perched behind her, giving us an unbothered gaze. And when I say some of Gia’s shoes, I really do mean some.

Gia Seo, the Alaska-born creative turned Brooklyn dweller, is down for us to flip her home upside down to get “the shot." Maybe that’s the artistic director in her. After all, we’re in the home of a woman who has collaborated with Nike, Complex, Dover Street Market, and Opening Ceremony, to name a few. “The goal was always that the brand would impact the culture in a positive way,” says Gia when talking about her career. She continues, “To be heard is the biggest accomplishment.” Another big accomplishment? The level of “organized chaos” in her two-bedroom, one-bath abode nestled in the heart of Williamsburg.

A self-proclaimed “sockfluencer,” the model turned buyer turned stylist turned creative director has an Instagram presence that's hard to ignore. But this "texture-reporting" pattern aficionado is not very different from the 20-something offering me fresh French press coffee while helping move around a good chunk of her collectibles for our shoot. According to Gia, her personal style is “always in flux.” “Life is too short to stick to an aesthetic,” she quips proudly.

While this mood-driven mentality influences her wardrobe choices, her home stays pretty consistent. Maybe it’s the Taurus in her, reveling in the comfort of that consistency. “In the end,” she says, “my room always stays the same.” Her Taurean personality is enough probable cause for me, a fellow Taurus and avid astrology believer, to explain Gia’s love for things. “I’m the first to admit that my space can be overwhelming, or underwhelming if you see it all the time,” she notes, “but in that ‘whelming’ feeling you find a familiarity of all of your items in their exact place, and that is what I love about my semichaotic but very cozy home.”

So how does someone who loves organization keep all of her trinkets under control? Simple: through careful curation and a sustainable mentality—“if something new comes in, something old must go out, either through donations or friends.” While Gia's maximalist eye keeps her collection growing, her sustainable lifestyle rarely falters. "It has taught me to collect with more education and less blindly," she says.

Gia's maximalist hacks don't end with being a smart collector. Her go-to tip for fellow object lovers: Hang everything. “As a maximalist who hoards hard-core, decorating became about space saving, so everything had to be mounted onto walls to create more floor space in order to create the illusion of some organization to the chaos,” she says. Case in point: Gia's collection of decked-out skateboards lining a wall in her bedroom. A teenage Chloë Sevigny shares the wall with images from Supreme and Propaganda NY and an unlikely Arizona Ice Tea logo.

Another way to make space saving feel trendy: Mount nonboring shelves like the metal ones Gia scored from Chairish. Stacked on top of one is a Nike sneaker that was transformed into a planter by, you guessed it, Gia for Nike as a part of an installation highlighting a future where the environment is uninhabitable. Directly beneath the shelves, housing a skull sporting a Marc Jacobs mask, sits a three-tiered bookcase thrifted from Abigail Bell Vintage.

Even with all of the energy in the world, it's rather hard to feel inspired to collect, especially when living in a smaller space, but Gia definitely doesn't let this get in her way. Instead, she looks toward the future as her primary motivator. "The way I see it," Gia comments, "I've lived in New York for 10 years now, but if I lived anywhere else, in a house in the suburbs, my collections would really only fill up one room. This keeps me driven when it comes to acquiring."

"Don't ever let anyone tell you to stop collecting," Gia warns. "It is my legacy, and everyone deserves one of their own."