Irrational Exuberance
By STEPHEN TODD NY TIMES

When readers opened the June 2002 issue of Wallpaper magazine, they found a baffling surprise. It wasn't the discussions of $500 dominos, personal submarines or ''two-roomed goldfish bowls.'' It was the editor's letter. Written, as always, by Tyler Brûlé, it ended on an uncharacteristically melancholy note: ''As for me, gentle readers, little more to say than thank you and adieu.'' The man who had run the magazine since it was founded six years before, who had used it to define and propagate a new aesthetic so thoroughly branded that it was known only by the magazine's name, was stepping down. It was the end of an era.

Or to put it more precisely, it was the end of a vanishingly brief moment in consumer history. But through the combination of the style world's insular obsession with trends and the magazine's own self-mythologization, that brief moment had come to seem, to Wallpaper's devoted readers, like the dawning of a new age in design. The look of the magazine, the tone of its articles, the subjects of its fascination and the precision of its demographic target had all been perfectly in tune with the cultural mood of the times. Without Brûlé, supporters and detractors alike wondered, could the magazine survive? More important, could those times?

Brule, now 34, got his start in television, working first for the BBC, then eventually as a London bureau chief for Fox television. Quick-witted, charismatic and attractive, he was swiftly picked up by the fashion pack and was soon writing style features for The Sunday Times, The Observer and Vanity Fair. But he was easily bored and began accepting reporting assignments in the Middle East and other trouble zones. In Afghanistan, Brûlé was injured by sniper fire and subsequently repatriated to England, where he was hospitalized for a month. As the urban(e) myth has it, while reading magazines and reflecting on the meaning of life, the universe and Verner Panton plastic chairs, Brûlé had something of an epiphany. ''I realized you got one shot at life,'' he said, ''and there was no magazine out there that was telling me about things that were suddenly very important in life -- home, food, drink and seeing the world.''

When he recovered, he gathered a small team of creative acolytes and put together a photocopied mock-up to show to advertisers and publishers. ''At that time, I thought of Tyler as my cute, clever, funny friend,'' remembers Alice Rawsthorn, director of London's Design Museum. ''But I was blown away when he showed me the dummy of the magazine. It was astoundingly concise and clear.'' Read on (free regis. needed)