My Palace in New York: Tyler Bainbridge and Jennie Ross

“Solitude requires you to move past reacting to information created by other people and focus instead on your own thoughts and experiences – wherever you happened to be”

— Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism

Hello readers, I hope you all had a great 2023, things have been happening and my brain is super wrinkly! I’m happy to see how the habits we’ve nurtured during the pandemic are now integrated into our lives, we love staying in now and HOME has become a much more important concept for everyone who is finding peace in being alone and enjoying their space.

I started My Palace in Dallas during the height of the pandemic, and it was born from pure curiosity: I want to know, I want to see, and, most importantly, I want to document what the people around me have become after these unprecedented years. They can be artists, comedians, or they can also be the people you meet on the street—which is quite hard cause supposedly people in Dallas don’t walk at all. So, what is it that they do? This project delves into their stories and, as the name suggests, explores their Palace in Dallas.

Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to Tyler Bainbridge and Jennie Ross. They are one of the coolest power couples I’ve had the pleasure to call friends. We’ve been friends through Discord and Instagram since 2020, and I’m not kidding when I say if there were a goal for dynamic duos, it would be them. We talked about the newsletter that sparked our relationship, the modeling journey, the creative process, what makes a place a home, and what inspires them while sitting in their amazing apartment in Brooklyn.

Hello Tyler and Jennie! Thank you so much for opening up your space and having me here in your gorgeous space. It has been a long time coming for sure and I’m so excited to be sitting here with you! Before I bomb you two with questions, would you like to tell people a bit about yourself? Who are you and what is it *that you do?*

**J (Jennie Ross):** Sure! I’m Jennie, I’m 28, living in Brooklyn with my fiancé, Tyler, and I’m originally from Massachusetts. I’m a model and creative living in New York.
**T (Tyler Bainbridge):** Tyler Bainbridge, also 28, and living in New York with my fiancé, Jennie. I run this newsletter called Perfectly Imperfect where we bring on all kinds of people to talk about, what we call “A taste of someone’s taste”, basically just a few recommendations from them. I’m also a programmer and a photographer.

From being part of an amazing newsletter to shooting so many gorgeous campaigns, both of you have done so much with so many here, now, could you tell me what was that journey like for you guys and how did y’all got to where you are now?

T: Back in 2020 I was working as a web developer in Boston, I was looking for a project trying to take up that pandemic time and that’s how Perfectly Imperfect came to be. At the time it was just featuring friends of mine and eventually slightly bigger guests. It started out slow and grew very quickly over the last few years. A few years ago, we decided to move to New York, in March 2021. Now I’m working on making this newsletter my career. That’s where I’m at now.

J: I’m 28 now, and I’ve been modeling since I was 15, so it feels like a lifetime at this point. Being in New York elevated my entire career in general because you’re able to meet so many new people, network, and work with different teams on shoots, which is exciting as you branch out more. There’s much more opportunity in a larger market like NYC and I’d love to keep working with other artists and build my career here.

What triggered the decision for you two to eventually move here to New York?

J: I think in the back of our minds we both wanted to be living in New York. By 2019, a few of our close friends moved here, to this neighborhood actually. We fell in love with Carroll Gardens when we visited them so that was also part of the reason we decided on this borough.

T: We’ve always wanted to move to New York. I got a job that required us to relocate, and they actually paid for us to move here. We got on the tail end of the pandemic era rents right before it picked back up again so things aligned pretty well for us to actually make that move.

Did it take you two a while to change the mindset of being in this city and feel like you’ve settled down here?

T: We lived in a fairly urban part of Boston so we were ready to make the leap into the city. Obviously, it’s larger in scope here and there are so many more nooks and crannies to explore and people to meet. Luckily we have a pretty good friend network in place so our comfort level was pretty high right out the gate. I moved to the same neighborhood as one of my high school best buds and at the same time I was making a lot of friends online through doing Perfectly Imperfect, so I was also able to meet up with a lot of them in person for the first time which was a nice way to spawn new friendships when we first got here.

J: For me, I definitely had an adjustment period when I first moved to New York. I’m much more of a homebody, so while I love being able to branch out and try new things, I definitely felt the more intense energy of New York. I think it took me around 6 months to finally feel at home. We did have a lot of friends and we were super lucky to have people we knew before coming here, but there was an adjustment for me to feel settled in for sure.

T: We both enjoy being at home a lot and I think that’s why we were pretty focused on finding the right apartment. I wanted to have private outdoor space. It's such a big city so it can be hard to find a place where you can be outside alone with just a couple of your friends. If you go to the park there are usually thousands of other people there with NY being such a big city. We feel super lucky to have a deck where we can just hang out whenever we want. A lot of burgers have been smashed on this deck.

Like how you’d be curious about their letterbox account when you meet a film fanatic, I’m also super curious about your media outlet and where y’all usually get your inspiration from.

J: OK, I think you can go first.

T: I’m envious of people who can go into a movie or an album completely contextless or just randomly stumble upon them. I rely a lot on the taste of people that I trust and end up doing research before trying things out. Whenever I get a recommendation from a friend with whom I know I have a lot of alignment with, it will be weighted higher than anything else.

I think my primary source of discovery was learning from others, there’s no particular media outlet or source where I get the majority of my music and film recommendations from. It’s distributed to an individual level, friends of mine or creatives that I enjoy watching films with, or musicians whose tastes I enjoy learning about. That’s usually where I get my new stuff from.

I do read a lot of different newsletters. I like this newsletter by my friend Sami Reiss called Snake, he talks about furniture and vintage spaces in general. Blackbird Spyplane is another one. My friend Will used to write a great newsletter called Get A Load of This.

I do scroll through a lot of Letterbox accounts, deep stalking is what I would call it, haha, and see what movie someone else likes, I’m really interested in that.

J: I’ve always been this way, and maybe I’m a bit old school, but I love being in a local bookstore and going through all the books and magazines. It could be a home magazine or Vogue, but I like to physically see the printed photos and spreads. For example, I’ve been obsessed with Sophia Coppola’s archive as of late. It’s a massive book with years of work in there, and I really appreciate the time it took to curate. Seeing a lifetime of work in front of me inspires me deeply. I’m more often inspired by magazines and printed work that I can physically see in front of me.

I’m bringing TikTok into this too, let’s talk about it! *laugh*. Tyler started using TikTok before me, probably a year before I did, just casually and for fun. I always looked down upon TikTok, like it was what the “kids” do, but at one point, Tyler told me how I might end up liking it. I’ve learned so much on there and I should’ve given it a chance years ago.

Since we got engaged, I’ve been getting a lot of wedding ideas on Tik Tok and I’ve saved hundreds of photos as inspiration. It’s cool to discover these ideas and trends yourself instead of having to rely on a planner to curate your entire wedding day.

It’s been three years since the pandemic hit and I am always in awe at how many people including all of us here in this room rose up and did many incredible things during and after. What did you do to stay centered and sane? Did any of those new habits carry over now that things are back to normal?

J: I worked at a dental office as a patient coordinator in Massachusetts during the pandemic. We were masked up at the office but it still felt risky as Covid was spreading so quickly across the state. I was extremely grateful to have a full-time job when many people were at home. I saw it as a good situation for me to stay busy and save up during that time. I’m pretty sure I would’ve gone a little crazy if I wasn’t doing that, to be honest with you. Other than my full-time job, Tyler and I were focusing on cooking and baking at home, trying out new hobbies together, and doing fun photography projects during that time as well.

With modeling, it was really strange, because obviously everything shut down immediately. No clients were booking for photoshoots for 6 months or so. At home, I was able to do a few photoshoots with friends. There was one shoot I did virtually over Zoom, which felt different and fun for me.

T: The silver lining of the pandemic was that it did give a lot of people more free time. You could explore different hobbies or sink your teeth into a project in a more significant way. At the time, I was working remotely at my full-time day job from our apartment, but I would transition to non-work mode and tinker on Perfectly Imperfect, plotting out what it could be after logging off from my 9-5.

Work definitely kept me centered to a certain degree. Being able to fully throw myself into a project and let it consume me, which isn’t always the best thing, but at the time it was important to have something to look forward to and progress towards rather than descend into hopelessness. During the pandemic, I started exercising a lot which is something that luckily carried over to current times. I’d been using my exercise bike a lot, and staying fit has been great for my mental health. Over the last year or so it transitioned to cycling on the road, and next year, I’m hoping to bike to Montreal from New York City. It should take about a week.

J: It’s a new dream of his and I think he’s going to do it!

T: I think it’s good to have goals outside of projects and your “professional” life. Goals that are more hobby-oriented can be pretty grounding.

As an incredible creative you guys have both worked on things that transcend geographical boundaries yet are so close to our daily lives, I’m sure you have your fair share of traveling experience and exposure to different art/fashion scenes across different cities. what made you ultimately decide to move to NY and how did the move itself affect your trajectory in life?

T: Why we ended up in New York partially had to do with how I felt like there was a ceiling in Boston in terms of where you could go creatively. Using the music scene as an example, a lot of artists will start from Berklee or some of the colleges there and eventually graduate out. They end up moving to New York because that's where a more thriving music scene is, and a lot of other bands are. Not necessarily being formed there, but they come alive there. I liked that New York kind of opens up your doors and you can do anything there. There are a lot of exciting shows, movie screenings, and all kinds of events that you won’t find in a smaller city. With that comes a sense of community too, if you frequent all these shows and participate in the scene, eventually you’ll start making friends and some of those friends will start bands. Before you know it, you’ll become a part of the scene. Showing up and being there is important, that’s definitely what's led to a lot of the things you named in your question like collaborating with all these print publications you’ve described.

The people that I may have just met are usually working on interesting projects and that’s how the collaboration came to be in New York. Everyone is doing something almost to the point where it becomes a meme. I think that can be corny-ish sometimes, like how everyone is trying to start their own thing, but it’s also cool how people feel empowered to create freely and build things of their own, energy like that can be super contagious in this city. If you look at it another way, it is ultimately humbling because there will always be someone out there doing it bigger and better than you, so you’ll keep striving to push yourself.

J: On that note too, I think everyone here does help out each other. There’s a large creative community of musicians, models, directors, writers, photographers, and make-up artists, and everyone knows everyone to a certain degree, which makes it a tight circle.

Everyone is beyond talented at what they do, which inspires us for sure, and that’s the incredible energy about New York. Yes, like I said earlier it can be a bit intense, but if you handle it the right way, you WILL find your people. It does help to have that support navigating through the wild energy in the city.

T: It’s important to stay grounded because it’s easy to lose yourself trying to climb your way up or push yourself too hard doing so. It’s good to have a friend group outside of that world.

J: We like to say “touch grass.” You need to get out of the city sometimes, reconnect, and stay humble in a way where you can just be normal, be around friends, and be silly together. We truly appreciate and love all of our friends regardless of whether they are in the “creative industry” or not.

Being a pair of creatives in different industries living in this city, have spent quite some time finding your creative identity, and building up a place you call home, what do you think of this city?

J: When you truly start living here and get to know the city, it is exactly what you make out of it. Like I said, I’m a homebody, but I do try to go out and explore. There’s a fine line and you can figure out ways to balance it. It’s exciting to check out another area or borough of New York; you will quickly realize how incredible this place is, and you’ll have a pinch me, “I can’t believe I’m able to live here” moment.

Early on in our experience living in Brooklyn, I realized if I push myself to branch out, it would all come back to me. NYC is the type of city that gives back as much as you choose to give it.

T: I think what makes living in a large city so nice is the diverse neighborhoods and cultures, there’s always something new whether it’s a restaurant or just a place to walk around. There are also a good amount of old institutions that have been here forever, bars and restaurants in the neighborhood that existed far before we moved here. I like being a part of a city that is living and breathing. It’s fun.

**You’ve been here for a few years now, what would you say to be your favorite neighborhood?**

T: I like our neighborhood quite a bit. Jennie and I live in Carroll Gardens which is a bit of a stroller-ish neighborhood, with lots of young couples living here. We chose this neighborhood because a friend of ours happened to live here and we wanted to be near our friends, but we also liked it because of it’s old school charm and how comfortable it is. I like the fact that we live pretty far from the so-called “cool” neighborhoods like the Lower East Side or Bushwick, just normal people all around and it’s a quiet pocket of a town. Jennie and I also really like Red Hook, it’s a great underrated part of the city because it’s a little hard to get to but we can walk over pretty easily from our neighborhood.
J: I was going to say Red Hook too! Great food, great bars. It’s a great place to sit in the summer on a super hot day and hang out with your friends. You’re by the water, there’s Steve’s Key Lime Pie, vintage stores, and other fun spots around for you to spend the entire day out in the sun.
T: You can go to Sunny’s on a Sunday afternoon and they usually do bluegrass outside the bar. You can just show up with your instrument and play along with them. We like this bar Ice House down the street. Bar Mario is a nice restaurant we love down the street or Hometown Bar-B-Que. It’s a small area but has a lot to offer, very charming.
J: It’s so good, I’m literally dreaming of their cornbread right now.

As I look around, I can see a lot of your taste in a tangible form! I can’t even begin picking out a favorite one so now the hard part is, what would you say is your most prized possession? (this could be face value or sentimental value, whichever way you prefer answering)

J: Where is the Julia Fox book? The Sophia Coppola archive is a favorite book too as I mentioned earlier. Oooh and my Marcel the Shell figurine on top of this shelf. But my true number one prized possession is my Gram’s fudge recipe. I had her write it down for me in 2013 so I could have it forever; she ended up passing on later that year.

T: This camera would be my favorite thing in the place, my go-to camera Contax T2. But I also love this photo book, GIRLS BLUE, on Japanese youth culture in the 90s. It’s a lot of rock n roll, random food shots, people partying, etc. Really bright colors all around and it’s one of the rare collectibles I have.

I have one more before wrapping it up! For those who are interested in getting into this business or starting something of their own like you guys did. What suggestions or advice would you like to give them or is there anything you wish you’d known sooner?

T: I give this advice to everybody. The most important thing you can do for your project is to stick with it. I think there are too many people out there who give up if they don’t see any results from their project within, let’s say, the first few months, but I think you really have to stick to something long enough for it to grow into itself. Be patient.

I’d also say just take shots you wouldn't normally take. The number of times I’ve reached out to publicists or an idol of mine and they actually responded to it, the rate for that tends to be a bit higher than you’d think. If you take those big swings that you may be intimidated or discouraged by, sometimes they might just work out.

J: If you don’t ask, you’ll never know what the result will be.

T: Another one would be that there are a lot of milestones to your project when you’re starting out. There will be one win and another after that, and the wins will start to get slightly more frequent, but at first, all you need is that first win. It could be the first 10 subscribers, getting acknowledged by someone you look up to. Those little moments will become more frequent after that as you continue to invest yourself in your project more.

J: In general I think you really have to push yourself to network. Ask someone out for a coffee because you never know what will happen. For someone in the modeling industry, I think it’s important to continuously push yourself to branch out and meet new people.

T: Yeah, you have to do a lot of parties or events, gatherings by yourself. It can be pretty intimidating, but slowly you’ll start to accumulate people that will say what’s up when you walk into a room, and eventually they become friends that you hang out with often.

You have to be thick-skinned and willing to lean into the uncomfortable feeling sometimes, or a lot of the time *laughs.

To wrap this interview up, also because I am curious personally, what’s on the horizon for you two? Are there any “Big things coming” in the works for y’all? What would you like the world (whichever random soul stumbled upon this article) to know about?

J: I’m working on new modeling opportunities and focusing on getting signed here in NYC. This year I’m hoping to build my portfolio even more and do some fun editorial shoots.

T: There is going to be a big announcement soon for Perfectly Imperfect that I think at some point will line up and eclipse what the newsletter feels like now. I have high hopes for it and I’ve been working hard on it for the last 3-4 months. It’s called PI.FYI and you can sign up here. You can think of it as Letterboxd meets Myspace meets early Internet forums.