Press : The Independent – Nicky Haslam: Party Monster

21 March 2004

What is Nicky Haslam like! Has this interior decorator to the rich and influential contributed anything to culture beyond pelmets and party hats? To what does he owe his protean dress sense? Indeed, is he possibly the greatest ‘post-war faggot’ of them all? To dinner, then, with Andrew Barrow, in search of answers…

For the last 20 years or more, Nicky Haslam has been rubbing shoulders with me at parties, grinning conspiratorially, hurrying and scurrying around me, accepting my outstretched hand, guffawing at my mumbled asides and lifting my spirits in a surprising way.

But does he even know my name? Or the names of all the other people in the room whom he’s treating to the same, all-embracing flood of bonhomie? And does it matter anyway? Surely the whole point of Haslam’s frenetic display is to exude excitement and goodwill, to give rather than to take and to labour – if that’s what he’s doing – without any thought of reward?

Read the full article here.