Fall, styled: marrying country chic with Saratoga flair
Fresh off a ‘Country Living’ spotlight, Bethany Bowyer Khan leans into fall with podcasts, pumpkins and other autumnal delights with her brand, Arcadian Revival.
With her family officially back in school mode, designer and influencer Bethany Bowyer Khan is leaning into her other fall adventure: expanding her wildly successful seasonal living brand, Arcadian Revival.
To do so, she’s taking a long look at the projects she has going for her business, which touts bringing ever-changing seasonal décor and touches of nature inside the home via one’s garden, sustainable florals and even what you cook.
“I've had to take a real step back to reassess the next chapter of Arcadian Revival,” says Khan, who in 2020 moved to Wilton from Brooklyn with her husband, Jamil (they now have a family of four with first-grader Natalie and Christopher, 3). “I've taken a lot of time this past year to actually live what I'm preaching about sustainability and being an environmentalist. I have become more engaged with living a more balanced lifestyle and representing my own value system. It's my way of feeling good about how I spend my time as a community member and as a parent.”
Her goal as a designer and content creator: to conjure up a sense of time and place inside the home — including repurposing, using or framing mementos or items passed down in one’s family. (For reference, she grew up in Ohio in the same home as her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.) For a sense of Khan’s ethos, take a look at her podcast, Things I Learned from My Mother.
“It's about generational wisdom, the things that bring people together through community and through their connections to nature,” she says. “The name is a play on the word mother. So it's not necessarily just about anyone's personal relationship with their mother, but about all these other things that tug at the heartstrings or connect us in a really human way.”
If you’re new to Khan’s brand, you’re in for an autumnal treat. She’s currently decorating with tomato vines from her garden and heirloom blooms foraged from a nearby farm, and is in love with planting fall bulbs and the season’s “festive spirit.” She makes bakes pies with McIntosh apples from her property, hosts neighbors for an apple harvest celebration where they press cider, and even churns out old-fashioned apple cinnamon ice cream with her family.
Fresh off an appearance in rustic-charm bible Country Living, Khan also stays busy writing the Substack newsletter (Arcadian Revivalist) that she launched in the spring with an adjoining YouTube channel — all while keeping up with her interior design work. (Plus she’s on the board of Saratoga Plan, is Vice Chair of the Board of Sustainable Saratoga, and is the chair for Pitney Meadows’ annual Fire Feast fundraiser.) She even piled on a separate newsletter, Arcadian Revival Press, which she calls a “behind-the-scenes peek into the business and aggregation of everything we’re doing — all in one place.” Subscribers will get some freebies (think recipes and design tips).
“The Substack is a way to connect with the audience at a deeper level than what you can do with pictures on Instagram,” she says. “It's more substantive but in a fun way where we still talk about styling your home and celebrating the seasons.”
She has even built a home design and kitchen studio for sharing recipes and creating pressed botanicals without getting in her family’s way. Even its design reflects Khan’s connection to family and nature.
“This way, I can continue to share more content from there without taking up my family space in the kitchen upstairs,” she says. “The island custom built for sharing videos was inspired from an antique general store counter that was my kitchen island growing up. There’s also a hatchway that goes right out to our garden — so there's going to be a lot more garden-to-table content to come.”