“Man Shops Globe” Host Keith Johnson Didn’t Shop Around for a Boyfriend

Keith Johnson may be an expert shopper, a buyer for the high-end specialty retailer Anthropologie and the host of the new Sundance Channel program Man Shops Globe, but he didn’t have to shop around for a boyfriend.

They became boyfriends at age twelve.

“We met in grade school,” Johnson tells AfterElton.com of his partner Glen Senk. “We moved in together when we were 18. I’m 53. It’s quite a long-term relationship.”

Man Shops Globe features Johnson, a “found objects buyer,” as he travels the world looking for interesting and unique items for Anthropologie, the clothing and home furnishing store owned by Urban Outfitters that now has 90 stores in 24 states and the District of Columbia.

It was his partner who got the Johnson the job in the first place. A former Williams-Sonoma executive, Senk took over Anthropologie in 1994 when it had only a single location, soon bringing Johnson in to help him fill the store with merchandise.

“Glen understands retail like nobody in the world,” Johnson says. “I believe he’s the number one retailer in the world. I don’t think anyone could touch him.”

Ketih Johnson and Glen Senk

But Johnson, a former furniture designer and the son of an art dealer, quickly gained a reputation of his own, scouring the far corners of the world for all manner of decidedly unusual stuff with which to stock the stores.

Most of what he finds is unique, sold the way it is, often for some purpose other than what it was originally intended – oddly shaped jars that become candle-holders, for example. But some items inspire reproductions, from wall-hangings to headboards.

Famously, everything in the store is for sale, even the fixtures and the tables that display the merchandise – meaning that every store is different from every other one, and that each store is at least a little different on every visit.