The Impatient Pen: Printed Matter

Haslam pops up from decade to decade alongside some of the most fascinating people in our cultural history’. Vanity Fair

Nicky Haslam is known for a number of achievements: he is an established interior designer, a successful author, renowned society figure and, in his most recent incarnation, a cabaret singer, playing to sell out audiences in London and New York. Less well-known are his writings for a number of prestigious publications, including The Spectator, The Oldie, the Literary Review, as well as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Tatler and The World of Interiors among many publications both in the UK and abroad.

This curated collection celebrates Haslam’s accomplishments as a writer, commentator and litterateur. Incorporating selected pieces of Haslam’s extensive and eclectic writings from throughout his varied career and spanning several decades, The Impatient Pen is an anthology of a lifetime spent observing, learning, as well as thriving, among the artistic and society circles in Europe and America. Haslam’s critiques, commentaries, reviews and reflections attest to his status as a polymath: exhibiting his knowledge of assorted topics, ranging from architecture, painting and all areas of design to gardens, food, and social history, delivered with characteristic erudition, wit and insight.

NICKY HASLAM was born in 1939, in Buckinghamshire, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. He was educated at Eton, where he claims to have been ‘pretty useless at everything except art’, and, by the 1960s, was working in Art Direction on magazines such as Vogue in New York, before buying a ranch in Arizona, breeding Arabian horses, as ‘after all, who hasn’t wanted to be a cowboy?’ This was followed by three years among the movie colony in Hollywood. Returning to England in the ‘70s, he established himself as an interior designer with, among many clients, ‘the three R’s…. Royalty, Rock-stars, and Russians.’

‘Gloriously entertaining’.

Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler

‘Nicky Haslam has known everyone from Greta Garbo to Cole Porter to the Royal Family, with many unforgettable eccentrics in between. But this is not a catalogue of celebrities. It is a truly felt, beautifully crafted , wise consideration of a full life, which paints an unforgettable picture of a vanished England and America. Masterpiece is an overused word, but this Proustian evocation is indeed a masterpiece’

A. N. Wilson

‘From the Mitfords to Warhol’s Factory to Paris Hilton – Nicky Haslam has been at the centre of every glittering social circle in living memory… Haslam should be declared a National Treasure. While the nation’s spirits are grievously low, Haslam brings joy and sprinkles magic dust of one sort or another wherever he goes’.

The Times

‘You could find yourself as Nicky Haslam’s ‘plus one’ at the swellest parties with his delicious memoir’.

Harpers Bazaar