Nicholas Haslam

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Nicholas Ponsonby Haslam
Born	27 September 1939 Great Hundridge Manor, Buckinghamshire, England
Nationality	English
Other names	Nicky Paul Parsons (at Ritz Newspaper) Sam Hopper (at Vogue)
Education	Eton College
Occupation	Interior Decorator, Journalist
Employers	Nicholas Haslam Ltd
Known for	Dress sense^[1] Interior decoration Socialite Journalism
Board member of	Nicholas Haslam Ltd
Website nicholashaslam.com

Nicholas (Nicky) Ponsonby Haslam (27 September 1939 - ) was born at Great Hundridge Manor, Buckinghamshire, England, the third and youngest son of William Heywood Haslam, a British diplomat, and Diana (Diamond) Louise Constance Ponsonby, a granddaughter of the 7th Earl of Bessborough. He is an Old Etonian interior decorator, journalist and socialite.

In 1961, he went to New York where he first met Andy Warhol^[2], but stopped socialising with him and his socialite friends in the Factory on East 47th Street when he become a rancher in Arizona^[3]. He rose to public notice in the late 1970s writing for Ritz Newspaper, the defunct fashion and gossip paper edited and published by David Bailey and David Litchfield, and for Vogue.^[4] Today, alongside his interior decoration business he writes for The Spectator, and Literary Review.^[5]

As a young boy Haslam suffered from polio and was immobilised in a plaster cast for three years. This ailment, contracted when he was seven years old, had a strong formative influence on his life.^[6]

[edit] Books

Haslam, Nicholas (2002). Sheer Opulence: Modern Glamour for Today's Interiors. Watson-Guptill, 176. ISBN 978-0823047970.
Haslam, Nicholas (2008). Redeeming Features: A Memoir. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 9780297852100. Retrieved on 2007-12-09. “Nicky Haslam grew up in Buckinghamshire in a house called Great Hundridge Manor with his parents and two older brothers. Aged seven, he went to Scotland to visit his uncle Oliver, where he contracted polio and was paralysed down one side as a result. With time, he recovered and went to Eton, where he was to make quite a splash.”

[edit] References

"Nicky Haslam: Party monster," The Independent, 21 March 2004

[edit] Notes

^ Thomas, David. "Nicky Haslam: Hey, look at me! Cool, or what?", The Independent, 2001-05-07. Retrieved on 2002-12-09. "He dresses like a cross between Brazilian rough trade and Liam Gallagher, and parties like it's going out of fashion.""
^ Eager, Charlotte (2006-21-04). Factory Girls. The Evening Standard. Retrieved on 2007-12-11. “I was Warhol's first English friend, there would be a lot more later. I introduced him to David Bailey, Jean Shrimpton and Mick Jagger. All the lot who stayed with me in New York. Warhol drew sponges and perfume bottles for us; he was a commercial artist. He was painting the Brillo boxes and my sister was married to Mr Brillo, John Loeb, so that's how we met. He made a film in my apartment: Baby Jane Holzer and I doing a version of Kiss. One of his first. Early Sixties. You can see it at MoMA [the Museum of Modern Art in New York]. It's just an endless film of me kissing Baby Jane. She's still a great friend.”
^ Eager, Charlotte (2006-21-04). Factory Girls. The Evening Standard. Retrieved on 2007-12-11. “We were aware of being on the edge of something new. One thought it was shit and wouldn't last but they are now the most valuable works of art in the 20th century. Andy applied Pop Art to living people”
^ Coren, Victoria. "Would you buy curtains with Nicky Haslam?", The Observer review, Guardian Unlimited, 2002-10-20. Retrieved on 2007-12-09. "Yes, Nicky Haslam is an interior designer. Don't be embarrassed; until I read his charming coffee-table hardback, I too believed that he was a man who earned his living from going to parties. He gets everywhere, like an uncaged firefly. Dining with royals, drinking with Cilla, or (as he once described in his weekly diary for Hello! magazine) 'dancing all night with The Honeyz' Naima'. I have no idea who or what The Honeyz' Naima is, but I never forgot the pleasing timbre of that sentence. A friend of mine used to gatecrash exclusive events by pretending to be Nicky Haslam, assuming that his name would always be on the guest list. And it always was."
^ Barrow, Andrew. "Nicky Haslam: Party monster", Profiles, The Independent, 2004-03-21. Retrieved on 2007-12-08. "In the 1970s he was Paul Parsons in Ritz and Sam Hopper in Vogue. Today, his playful, punning, name- and place-dropping pieces appear in a variety of newspapers and magazines; he also files erudite book reviews for the The Literary Review and The Spectator, in which he often also writes the diary. Wherever possible, these informative bits of journalism are accompanied by a winking, leering, picture of Haslam himself."
^ Thomas, David. "Nicky Haslam: Hey, look at me! Cool, or what?", The Independent, 2001-05-07. Retrieved on 2002-12-09. "His youth was both marred and formed by a case of polio, which confined Haslam to his bed for three years encased in plaster. His room became the social centre of the house, where his mother's friends would congregate, chat, and listen to records of American musicals such as Oklahoma and Annie Get Your Gun. When he eventually went to school, aged 10, he was horrified to discover that his new companions were considerably less sophisticated. "I thought, 'What are these horrible little skunks that fart and piss and play games and things?'""