DIY collages go through changes
Expressions of creativity can be bought online.
The wall behind Sierra Palantino’s bed is covered with photographs: a bushel of coral- and pearl-colored roses; a bouquet of ruby and pink Mylar balloons; a close-up of a neon sign that says, “all the feels.” In thousands of bedrooms around the world, the same pictures are arranged in a neat collage.
Collage kits, as these colorcoordinated stacks of prints are called, have grown in popularity with the rise of Instagram and the decline of print magazines, whose pages could double as bedroom décor. On Etsy, there are almost 1,300 listings for “collage kit.” One popular kit is made by Tezza Barton, an Instagram influencer. (Her fans know her simply as Tezza.)
“I’ve always been someone who collaged, but it’s cool to have something that you can buy,” Palantino, who is 22 and a sample coordinator for Free People, said of her Tezza kit. “It just looked aesthetically pleasing.”
Barton began selling collage kits on her website in 2017. Each 150-page assemblage costs $89 and is loosely thematic: The Coastal Kit features beachy travel photos from the Amalfi Coast in Italy, Southern California and Hawaii, while the City Kit is an ode to the architecture and pace of New York. In January, she introduced the Dream Kit, a budget package of 75 images for $49.
For that price, you could also buy up to two dozen print magazines and create your own stack of collage-worthy images.
“It feels a little bit like a prepackaged imagination,” said Erin Hover, a former creative director of Teen Vogue. “It’s kind of doing the work for you rather than going out and being inspired by real life and taking your own photos or taking the time to flip through a magazine.”
Fashion spreads, she said, could take months and multiple paychecks (photographer, makeup artist, stylist, designer) to produce. By comparison, it takes Barton and her husband, Cole Herrmann, a month to photograph and design a kit. Then she prints the images on pages that approximate the thickness of a magazine cover.
Herrmann came up with the idea; many of his wife’s followers wanted to know how she made the collage pasted up in her studio apartment.
“You can buy a lot of magazines and curate your wall, but it was never like you could get this scene or a curated feel,” Barton said.
Collages loom large in popular culture and frequently appear in sets for TV shows and movies with young central characters. Chris August, the production designer for “To All the Boys 2: P.S. I Still Love You,” sees them as a means of self-expression and self-actualization.
“I think that the collage is just a way of them making specific choices to reinforce something they’re already feeling,” August said. “‘I want to be more like this.’ ”
Lara Jean Covey, the film’s protagonist, sleeps and dreams in a colorful, whimsically decorated room. Letters, drawings, photographs and colorful prints cover the walls on either side of her bed. Between the first film and the sequel, August added images to the collages to reflect her development over time.
Barton encourages buyers to add their personal prints to make the collages distinct. Isabel Collins, a fashion stylist, purchased the Tezza coastal collage kit and added her own artifacts to its arrangement: postcards, Polaroids and some magazine pages.
“The quality of the kit is so much better than a magazine, and it is so customizable. Nobody’s is going to be exactly the same, so it makes it a little more personal,” Collins, 24, said. “It’s easier to put something together versus going through a million magazines and seeing what works.”
Still, some see the kits as a shortcut to creativity — and further evidence that Instagram has created a kind of monoculture.
“People’s lives are starting to look the same,” Hover said. “People’s apartments are starting to look the same. Social media is starting to look the same. People’s makeup is starting to look the same. It’s kind of like, pick an avenue and there’s something you can buy to achieve it.”