Issue #00007 : January 1, 2026

Hello and happy new year, dear readers!

No top 10 predictions bullshit from Mr Thread. After all 34 billionaires predicted how the stock market would fare in 2025, and more than half of them got it wrong. We’re still here to give you only the news that matters.

I’m starting 2026 with a trademark lawsuit served to my company right before the holiday—yes, you read that correctly. It’s a fascinating mess worthy of a Netflix special, but I can’t share details yet. What I can say: this situation has shaped my entire entrepreneurial career and colors how I read every business story that crosses my desk. More on that journey as we go.

For now, that ugly legal shock has left me feeling spicy and ready to embrace this latest struggle. 

This week’s quieter news cycle still delivered some interesting developments, particularly on my favorite subject: stopping the uglification of the world. What we do in this industry—fighting boring by making beautiful human things—isn’t just noble work. It's a fundamental human right.

I also want to add that last week, a reader emailed us with a hot take that directly shaped part of this issue. That’s exactly how we want to build Mr Thread. By hearing your voices to help us improve so we can make this journal the best part of your week. 

If you have thoughts on how we can improve or topics you'd like us to cover, just reply to this email (or click here). I read every message and I'll even send a small surprise to a few of the best responses.

I love working in the design industry and know you do too. I've never met anyone who joined our industry and left it. We work with the best products and people in the world.

I’m excited to continue building Mr Thread with you in 2026!

Now, scroll down to see: Inside Trump’s maximalist Oval Office, a wealthy entrepreneur’s fund to fight uglification, and why the Pope would make a great interior designer…

See you next week.

Where have all the beautiful cities gone?
David Perell’s long post on X stopped me cold this week. He put into words—eloquently and precisely—something I often struggle to articulate: why beauty matters, and why the work we do in design isn’t decorative, indulgent, or unnecessary. 

Perell’s post reaffirmed something I believe deeply: we’re not just selling beautiful objects to rich assholes. The beauty we provide is essential. As Pope Francis said, “We are the custodians of beauty” in an increasingly dark world.

Perell introduces a concept that perfectly captures what we’ve lost: Democratic Beauty. He writes:

“We used to have a culture that valued Democratic Beauty. We worked to design a society where everybody, regardless of their lot in life, and no matter their paycheck or pedigree, could routinely experience man-made beauty by virtue of being a citizen.”

Good aesthetics make people feel better. That’s obvious. So why wouldn’t we lift people up by making everyday objects, spaces, and experiences less boring and more beautiful? Why are we allowing our cities and communities to become uglier and shittier, all for convenience and cost savings?

Perell argues we’ve been conquered by what he calls “the Spreadsheet Class”—bureaucrats and bean counters who’ve reduced every decision to short-term cost optimization. 

“The Western world is wealthier than it’s ever been, but instead of using the money to beautify the world, we use the money to make more money.”

Beauty is something that quietly improves mood, dignity, and meaning. Beauty helps us dream. Beauty helps us aspire. We just have to treat it as a priority not as a short-term expense that dents EBITDA.

That’s the mission behind my companies. Behind Mr Thread. And frankly, it should be the mission of every serious player in the design industry. 

Not beauty for a few, but beauty for everyone.

The piece genuinely moved me. I’ll reread it for years.

More AI slop from Havenly incoming. 
“Would You Let A.I. Design Your Living Room?” That was the New York Times headline this week about Havenly—the online interior design platform connecting users with affordable designers—now launching a new AI app. CEO Lee Mayer is talking big again.

While I find their founder, Lee Meyer, to be brave and bold, I’ve never understood Havenly’s appeal. This move is predictably tired and unsurprising. To me, their software solutions and website feel amateur and poorly designed. They still look and feel like a startup. And no other major competitors in this space are thriving either. So what’s actually happening at Havenly?

The reality is AI room visualization is a race to the bottom. Running room photos through models and generating finished images in seconds used to feel like science fiction. Now it’s table stakes. It’s everywhere, and it will only get faster and better.

The real challenge isn’t resisting AI—it’s integrating it with human artistic context. A designer’s curatorial intelligence cannot be replaced by a machine, no matter how advanced it may be. The opportunity is using these tools to amplify judgment, not replace it, and to deliver new value to design clients.

This will likely play out the way Photoshop and Canva did. AI will make DIY design dramatically easier and more accessible. But accessibility is not professionalism. Our work is still rooted in an artist’s eye and a deep understanding of materials, fabrics, furniture, light, and proportion.

Yes, anyone will eventually be able to generate a room that looks like a Michael Smith interior. But without curation, material intelligence, and physical reality—real objects, real durability, real craft—it won’t be good design, and most importantly, it won’t feel right.

BoH’s 2026 predictions miss the mark.
Business of Home just published their annual predictions feature, polling industry leaders on what's coming in 2026. Purple’s having a moment, sleek retro kitchens are back, decorative plasters are everywhere, yada yada. I'll be blunt: this felt like a throwaway piece. 

BoH has over 40,000 subscribers representing the Who’s Who of the industry, but this felt like a list compiled via email by an intern. I’ve been a loyal reader since day one, back when it was called Editor at Large. After their 2022 acquisition by VC firm Recurrent Ventures, things feel monolithic. It’s gotten formulaic and stagnant. Kind of why I started Mr Thread, to bring some spice back to design news while exploring more of the fascinating angles of our industry. 

Very little investigative journalism emerges from BoH anymore. That’s where they shine, and where writer and editor Fred Nicolaus does his best work. They should lean into that and create more long-form podcasts and in-depth research features on the businesses and people that make our industry great.

Trump delays furniture tariff hike—for now.
President Trump just delayed the scheduled tariff increase on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities that was set to take effect January 1, 2026. The current 25% tariff imposed last September stays in place, but the planned escalation to 50% gets pushed back another year while the administration continues “productive negotiations” with trade partners.

High-end projects won't use imported pre-made cabinets anyway—they're working with custom millwork. But those luxury projects aren't exempt from tariff pain: Trump's 2025 tariffs on timber, lumber, and wood products hit domestic custom fabricators too, since many source premium materials internationally. 

For designers working on kitchen projects at any price point, tariff exposure is real. Smart designers are already having conversations with clients about material costs and building contingency into proposals. My takeaway: trade policy volatility is here to stay.

Fashion’s rough year holds lessons for design.
Business of Fashion recapped the biggest stories of 2025 this week, and the throughline is unmistakable: the luxury giants are still stuck in a funk.

Many of the category’s big players had tough years and are eager to turn the page. While fashion isn’t our industry, we watch it closely because it’s often a crystal ball that shows where luxury spending and thinking will go next.

The design industry felt much of the same pain this year. Outside of a tiny fraction of brands showing real growth, demand softened. High-end interiors, like fashion, are emotional purchases. When confidence wobbles, so does spend.

The markets tell a similar story. Luxury stocks underperformed and investors remain unconvinced. A few fashion players continue to impress—Hermès, Brunello Cucinelli—but many others are struggling to regain momentum.

What’s missing isn’t craftsmanship or product quality, it’s relevance. We need new ways to speak to Gen Z and break through the dated luxury marketing clogging social feeds. There’s an enormous amount our industry can learn by studying the business of luxury fashion.

Eye on the markets.
I'm obsessed with watching certain bellwether companies in the news and in the stock market. I think it helps design entrepreneurs see where the economy is headed—and plan before everyone else catches on. Knowledge is power.

Super quiet market week, but Lowe’s just made its second massive acquisition of 2025: $8.8 billion for FBM, after buying Artisan Design Group earlier this year. They’re playing with capital at a scale our industry has never approached—the biggest design firms (including RH) top out around $2-3 billion in market cap. For interiors to see true billion-dollar outcomes, consolidation has to happen. Mr Thread regulars know that this goes against everything I love, especially the cottage, artisanal nature of our industry, but I wouldn't bet against it. The AI era lowers barriers and rewards scale faster. Let’s hope whoever builds the Amazon of design does it out of love for beauty and people, not profits.

Fine sign for the last day of the year. 
Mortgage rates dropped to 6.15% this week—the lowest level of 2025, according to Freddie Mac. After hovering near 7% for most of the year, rates have finally retreated, offering some relief to a housing market constrained by affordability issues. For perspective, rates averaged 6.91% during the same period in 2024. This is an “encouraging sign for potential homebuyers heading into the new year,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac's chief economist. If momentum continues into the peak buying season, 2026 could see stronger sales figures, but you won’t see me getting excited until this rate is in the fives.

Patrick Collison wages war on ugly.
Patrick Collison, co-founder of Stripe with his brother, just launched a new fund calling for new aesthetics. This is exactly what we’ve been hoping for.

I’ve followed the Collison brothers’ career closely. Two young guys from modest Irish upbringings who completely reimagined banking and money. You probably use Stripe every day without thinking about it.

To see them invest serious capital in solving the problem of an uglier world is promising and uplifting. As cultural commentator Cory Doctorow describes it, we’re experiencing “enshittification”—a very real trend worth reading about. We need leaders to step up and tackle this abstract, difficult concept of aesthetics.

Fixing this problem will take tons of money, influential people with power, and private ambition. Thankfully, other uber-wealthy young entrepreneurs are focused on this problem too, like Joe Gebbia of Airbnb. I’m too old and not nearly rich enough to count in this group, but I’m watching closely. Because I don’t see our governments helping—if anything, they’re making things uglier and worse.

I'm not a fan of the year-end roundups and trend predictions flooding the feed right now—and after 20 hours wading through AI slop and bad takes, my eyes are bleeding. But a few pieces are worth your time. Here's what made the cut.

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