Though eBay has transformed the way people shop for design, the site interface itself has until recently been known for an absence of aesthetics. That is changing, however, with the company’s appointment of Michael Phillips Moskowitz. The erstwhile Stanford research associate signed on as chief curator and editorial director a year ago when the company bought his e-commerce startup, Bureau of Trade, a men’s wear-focused site offering carefully chosen vintage objects alongside, in the name of what he calls “conscientious consumption,” the origin stories behind them. Since then, he has spearheaded a series of initiatives to impart good taste into a platform that for years made users dig for it.
It was Moskowitz who had a hand in hiring Pharrell Williams to contribute product selections and serve as an eBay “brand ambassador”; Moskowitz also helped launch the Collections sections, groupings of products laid out narratively like magazine pages. An avid art collector, he also played a key role in creating eBay’s new live auctions feature, in which certified-authentic fine art and antiquities have been made accessible in real time and to newcomers and professionals alike. Sotheby’s is the lead partner in the initiative, while respected houses like Doyle and Swann have also signed on. And in the pipeline is No Reserve, a longer-form storytelling platform through which writers, photographers and filmmakers will explore the people and places that give rise to eBay’s most interesting merchandise. “Shopping should be less about the sweat equity of search, and more about the emotional rewards of seemingly serendipitous discovery,” he says.
Among those things are an antique firefighter’s trampoline 10 feet in circumference mounted like a light fixture to the living-room ceiling; a taxidermied peacock standing sentry above a pair of 1970s audio speakers of what Moskowitz calls “breastlike” form; and a metal naval officer’s desk that collapses into a cube. What appears to be a bowl full of bonbons on a marble cafe table is in fact a mound of shotgun shells (“for conversation’s sake,” he says) that speaks to a nearby framed, bullet-hole-pocked motorcycle safety suit from 1951. There are Berber betrothal headdresses and 17th-century Belgian tapestries and Richard Serra lithographs and prosthetic molds from the Paris Puces and an 18-pound chunk of black quartz. Moskowitz’s most prized eBay score, however, lives down the block: a 1967 Porsche 912 sourced from his native California.
Lucite box with rope handles
“I love clean, geometric, acrylic or glass accents because they can be integrated with, or into, design schemes of virtually any variety. Any period. Any paradigm: modern, Deco, Hollywood regency, primitive or industrial. Personally, I like to hand-draw messages onto the surface, or place and rotate anomalous objects inside.”
Dogon textiles
“I’ve always been fascinated by religious traditions in Mali – the practices, appurtenances, craft traditions, sculpture, architecture and textiles. The Dogon people — like many disappearing or threatened minorities in the region — are deserving of attention, commendation and protection. Separately, you can find similar textiles at the Crow’s Nest, Sean MacPherson‘s summer hotel in Montauk.”
“There’s a surfeit of charcoal nudes for sale in galleries, at auction or in art school studios across the country, but there’s a surprising scarcity of truly strong, compelling work. Of the better works I manage to find, I like to frame and scatter a selection of them on the less-visible walls of my bedroom — the only figurative work of any kind that I place in the room. Frankly, I’m of the opinion that the only humans that belong anywhere in a bedroom are the people occupying it.”
Asprey sterling silver hermit crab salt and pepper shakers
“I’m not much of a foodie. In fact, I’m none too hostile to the notion of subsisting on Soylent. But I happen to like some of the accoutrements associated with fine dining, and this is a thoughtful little gesture appropriate for any shoebox-sized flat or stately home.”
Elaine de Kooning
“No artist means more to me then de Kooning. This is just a playful little related treasure that appeals to me out of some sense of fealty and devotion.”
Piebald peacock
“A peacock can represent virility, wealth, pride or any other incarnation of preening masculinity. Some taxidermy (even antique work) can arouse antipathy or seem gauche when displayed anywhere outside of a natural history museum or hunting lodge, but this particular piece ties the room together for me. It’s both a crowning item of sorts and a commentary on the lengths to which men are forced to go to attract a mate. Like Chris Rock said, ‘you don’t get a soulmate. You’re lucky if you get a mate.’”
Gilded ibex head cocktail table
“I happen to have a certain fondness for Hollywood Regency when it collides with naturalism. This piece is equally suitable for southern Israel or southern California, two places I constantly feel oddly at home.”
MGA Roadster 1600
“In New York, this might never make for an intelligent daily driver — in any season, anywhere in the five boroughs — but I love it as a cafe cruiser on any cloudless afternoon. On the street, it behaves like a sexy, short-distance sprinter. But on the highway, alongside SUVs, it’s just a terrifying drive, requiring considerably more testicular fortitude than some men can muster without medical aid.”
