A Place Where We Can Be Ourselves A discovery of Nashville’s creative revolution with Libby Callaway.
BY SARAH KENDZIOR + PHOTOS BY ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
In 2004, Libby Callaway had it all, including a job as a fashion columnist for the New York Post that let her travel the world and put her at the forefront of trends in style. But she was not happy. “I had a moment of divine intervention,” she recalls over brunch at Margot Café & Bar, a popular restaurant in East Nashville. “My career was great. I was blowing up. But I wasn’t satisfied. One day I was like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t have to do this.’ So I left.”
entrepreneurs who have migrated to the Southern city since the late 1990s. Known for its country music and honky-tonk scene, Nashville may strike one as an unlikely destination for a creative renaissance that can seem (and sometimes is) straight out of Brooklyn. But the city’s affordability and laid-back pace have allowed Nashville artists to find what they lacked in the costly cities of the coasts: friendship and freedom.
Callaway headed to Nashville—part of a wave of artists, writers, stylists and other creative
“In New York, I felt like a commodity,” says Callaway, a Tennessee native whose moth-
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er, an interior designer and antique dealer, raised her to appreciate art and style. “Here, I can create my own job, and it’s an unbelievably collaborative community, with so much pride. Nashville didn’t realize how cool it was. Nashvillians thought because we weren’t New York or LA that we weren’t special. But that’s exactly what makes us special.” Since moving to Nashville in 2004, Callaway has worked in a variety of fields: as a journalist, a creative consultant, a retailer of vintage clothes and a blogger for her culture and style
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