Nicky Haslam

Nicholas Ponsonby Haslam (born 27 September 1939) is an English interior designer and socialite, and founder of the London-based interior design firm, Nicky Haslam Studio. Haslam was born at Great Hundridge Manor, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, the third son of diplomat William Heywood Haslam (1889–1981) and his wife, Diamond Louise Constance née Ponsonby, known as Diana, who was a granddaughter of the 7th Earl of Bessborough, a goddaughter of Queen Victoria, and the former wife of Dr. Henry E. Marks, an American physician. Haslam's brothers are Ralph Michael Haslam (born 1931) and William John Heywood Haslam (born 1933). He also had a half-sister, Diana Marks, known as Anne (1925–1987), who in 1949 married John Hilder Loeb, son of a founding partner of the Brillo Manufacturing Corporation. Haslam was educated at Eton College, a paid-for public school. In the early 1960s, Haslman was an editor at Vogue before becoming the art director at Show, the magazine of the arts. In 1966, Haslam and his lover at the time, American banking heir James Davison, bought Black Canyon Ranch, near Phoenix, Arizona, for breeding and showing Arabian horses. From 1970, he combined breeding show horses, working in Los Angeles as a photographer and designing rooms and parties for clients such as Natalie Wood. Haslam broke up with Davison, and in 1972 returned to London, where he was soon asked to design and decorate a townhouse for Alexander Hesketh. In the early 1980s, Haslam owned and operated the Nicholas Haslam Showroom on Holbein Place, London, together with his then-partner, Paolo Moschino.