Arriving at Nicky Haslam’s Kensington pied-à-terre on the stroke of 10.30am, I worry that such punctuality is naff. After all, the interior designer is a renowned judge of what — and who — counts as common.
“It is naff to be bang on time for dinner,” says Haslam, welcoming me into his sitting room, which is decorated with various portraits of himself. “You should be 15 minutes late, because the hostess isn’t ready anyway.” The 85-year-old society darling reassures me that being prompt in this professional scenario is absolutely fine. Phew.
The gas fire is roaring chez Haslam and the combination of cigarette smoke — he puffs relentlessly on his Vogues — and fireside heat makes me immediately light-headed. “My doctor says, ‘At your age, it cannot hurt you really’,” he says. “My father smoked more than I do. He died at 99.” Haslam also takes cocaine (just tiny bumps, and no sniffing after 10pm or you can’t sleep) but doesn’t do psychedelics and hated the one occasion he tried heroin, egged on by an aristo.
When I first interviewed Haslam six years ago, he gave me one of his tea towels displaying a list of things he found common. That inaugural 2018 list included: loving your parents, Richard Branson, skiing in France and — oh dear — minding about smoking. The idea initially came about after he wrote a column in the Evening Standard that detailed what he found irritating, and it struck a chord.
Today the release of the what-Nicky-Haslam-finds-common tea towel has become an annual occasion. In 2018, the towel cost $23. Now it’s $64. “There’s something for everyone to object to, I think,” he says proudly, presenting me with this year’s iteration.
Destination weddings, almond milk, Antiques Roadshow, fire pits, luxury cinemas, The Telegraph crossword, Bach and barn conversions are on the list. To my puzzlement, so are yellow bags. Eh?
“Selfridges made me put it on because they have yellow bags,” says Haslam, explaining that he is collaborating with the department store for the first time. “They came to me.” It’s a shrewd move — to appear on the list is excellent PR.
But corporate sell-out or not, the tea towel is as gloriously silly, snarky and snobby as ever. Also declared common are: the Welsh Guards (“[Conservative peer] Lord Benyon made me put that on — he said the Welsh Guards are frightfully common”); St Paul’s School (“Everyone went to St Paul’s, you don’t have to tell us”), and leather jackets on children. The inclusion of rescue dogs will surely put people’s backs up. “They’ve become like a Birkin bag,” he says. “You can’t have an ordinary dog, you have to have a rescue dog.”
Throughout the year, the designer jots down suggestions for the next version. “I just put Lucy Worsley on a note. Isn’t she ghastly? That affected voice.” He does an impersonation of the television historian.
The Met Gala, the annual show-ponies party hosted by Dame Anna Wintour in Manhattan, was on the 2022 list. This year, Wintour’s daily routine is called out. “It’s so boring hearing about her routine,” huffs Haslam. “Getting up, going to the gym, getting her hair done, bleurgh. bleurgh.”
Does he know Wintour? “Very well, yes. I remember her when she was Min Hogg’s assistant at the magazine Harper’s & Queen. She doesn’t like me to remember that.” He’s not sure if Vogue’s editor-in-chief, not famed for her sense of humor, will see the funny side. “It’s sort of an honor to be on it now,” he insists.
“There’s something for everyone to object to, I think.”
Sir Antony Gormley’s sculptures are declared common too. “I can’t bear Antony Gormley. I didn’t like him as a man, but I loathe his sculptures,” says Haslam, exhaling languidly. “To cast your own rather hideous body and litter it all around the country … I met him years ago, before he was famous.”
The Duchess of Sussex, surprisingly, comes in for praise. “I know she’s ghastly but she’s got guts,” he says. “Who’d want to live in a damn cottage in Frogmore and open boring things and have to be part of that ghastly family, all of whom hate each other? Much more fun to be with movie stars and tycoons in California and flying about. Much nicer life, and she’s given it to Harry.”
Born to “Diamond” Louise Constance Ponsonby, one of Queen Victoria’s goddaughters, and educated at Eton, Haslam has met everyone. He had a brief fling with Lord Snowdon in 1959, decorated for the King (when he was plain old Prince Charles), is friends with Camilla and swanned around Sixties New York with Jean Shrimpton, David Bailey, the Rolling Stones and Wallis Simpson. “Andy says in one of his books, ‘Nicky Haslam took me to Park Avenue and made me smart’, which is true,” he says of his late friend, Andy Warhol.
His face lights up when talking about his Manhattan years. “There were still Wasps, there were movie stars everywhere,” says Haslam. “I was working on Vogue, it was great fun. I was the pretty boy in New York, so I was in the papers and I had a wonderful lover.”
That lover was Jimmy Davison, a banking heir, with whom he moved to Arizona for what he calls his “cowboy years”. The pair broke up decades ago but still talk once a week. “If you’ve given love it’s always there,” he says.
These days, the long-term singleton divides his time between London and his Cotswolds home (a gatehouse on Lord and Lady Bamford’s estate). His new best friend in the country is the former culture secretary Nadine Dorries: “She really is as good as you can be, even if she’s got no idea about culture.” He has agreed to help her with the interiors in her new home nearby. “She needs help,” he says emphatically.
Talk turns to how millennials (my generation) decorate their homes in the 50 shades of cream style made popular by interiors in Soho House. Haslam — who has decorated homes for Sir Ringo Starr, Sir Mick Jagger and a clutch of oligarchs — also blames our boring decor on the celebrity interior designer Kelly Hoppen. “She brought that completely bland look in,” he says. “I happen to love Kelly, one of the few people who do, but she started that beige rot again.”
Haslam’s claws come out fully when spilling the beans about Dame Jilly Cooper’s garden party in the Cotswolds last summer, where she hosted celebrity friends and the cast of Rivals, the much-hyped Disney+ screen adaptation of her novel. On the actor Stanley Tucci, he says: “Terrible show-off … terrible clothes. He was so oily and a show-off at the same time, which is a very difficult mixture.”
Over the party’s champers and canapés, Haslam chatted to a stranger. “I was talking to this little, tiny man, and I thought, ‘Who is this Iranian taxi driver?’ And it was one of the stars.” Which is a problem, because Aidan Turner is very much Irish, not Iranian.
Haslam was born in 1939, but doesn’t believe British attitudes to class have changed in his lifetime and pooh-poohs the suggestion that Sir Keir Starmer’s government spells the end of posh-boy dominance.
“England never changes. They just sail through it in some ghastly, muddled way, getting poorer and poorer,” he says. “People still do exactly what they want to do. People give huge parties. They go abroad. Maybe Starmer will send two or three millionaires to live in Portugal, but which rich people actually want to live abroad? They’ll pay the tax because it’s much more fun to live in England.”
I ask who throws the best parties, which turns out to be a faux pas. “I can’t bear the expression — sorry, that’s common. I hate ‘throw parties’. You give parties,” he says, arguing that my phrasing is an American import. Haslam is utterly likable and utterly ridiculous. With a straight face, he says things such as “The Chipping Norton Co-op is as good as Fortnum & Mason” and “I adored being on chemo” (he has had cancer twice).
On the actor Stanley Tucci, he says: “Terrible show-off … terrible clothes. He was so oily and a show-off at the same time, which is a very difficult mixture.”
For 85, the bon viveur looks brilliant. Slim as a pin (apparently all the Cotswolds “hedge-fund boys” are on Ozempic) and with a full head of silver hair, he’s open about his face lift and a second surgical touch-up. “I had the chin done again to get rid of the wattles, because all a man shouldn’t have is wattles.”
It sounds as if he is still the most invited man in Britain. He tells me about a party in the country hosted by some of the richest people in the UK; it cost $11.6 million and some guests turned up — shock horror — in shorts. I bring up Dame Joan Collins’s recent complaint to a newspaper diarist that no one dresses up nicely anymore. “Except her in those cheap old frocks,” Haslam chips in. Which is a bit rich considering he openly adores Primark.
We talk about his old pals Charles and “completely magical” Camilla. “He always comes back to what is growing in his pots,” he says of the King. “I wish he’d stop wearing all those uniforms and medals. It all looks so old-fashioned and he could have modernized a bit more because [the Queen] is so modern.”
After 90 minutes with Haslam, I leave stinking of cigarette smoke but stuffed with vital new tidbits, which I take as gospel. Gouda cheese is apparently pronounced “hou-da”. To get rid of lingering dinner guests, ask if they’d like a “sticky drink” (a digestif). “Nobody does want a sticky drink, and it proves that it’s time to get off the wine,” he says. Sitting with your back to the light is more flattering. In restaurants, don’t ask what vegetables come with your dish. “You choose what it comes with. You don’t ask!” Haslam practically shouts. And, obviously, give parties, but never throw them.
Laura Pullman is the New York correspondent for The Sunday Times of London
