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Interior designer and artist Ashley Hicks presents his photographs and description of the interior design of Buckingham Palace, home of Britain's royal family since 1837. An important representation of Regency, Victorian, and Edwardian styles, the palace is the work of such noted architects as John Nash and Sir Aston Webb. Hicks records the formal spaces with vibrancy, capturing the magnificent rooms furnished with treasures from the Royal Collection. Starting at the Grand Staircase, Hicks leads us through the state rooms, which include the White Drawing Room and the Blue Drawing Room that both overlook the palace gardens; the Ballroom, which is the setting for twenty investiture ceremonies each year; and the Throne Room, used by Queen Victoria for spectacular costume balls in the 1840s. The long, skylit Picture Gallery is hung with important works of art from the Royal Collection by Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, Anthony van Dyck, Johannes Vermeer, and Canaletto, among others. Decorative furnishings from George IV's exotic Brighton Pavilion lend a fanciful turn to many of the rooms.
Back in print for the first time in years, this classic of interior-design history showcases the masterful work of David Hicks (1929–1998), who is acknowledged as one of the most important designers of the late twentieth century, in the company of Billy Baldwin and Albert Hadley. Known for his bold use of color, eclecticism, and geometric designs in carpets and textiles, Hicks turned English decorating on its head in the 1950s and ’60s. His trademark use of electrifying color combinations, and mixing antiques, modern furniture, and abstract paintings became the “in style” for the chic of the day, including Vidal Sassoon and Helena Rubinstein. By the 1970s, David Hicks was a brand; hi...
Inspirational and visually on trend, Ashley Hicks's latest work is a pattern book for the twenty-first century. Offering insights and revelations, Hicks's own exquisitely quirky and colorful historicist interiors are discussed with designs from the recent and faraway past. Ashley Hicks has created a mix of manifesto, souvenir album, and confession in this collection of noteworthy rooms--featuring his own one-of-a-kind interiors along with rooms that have inspired him. The manifesto aspect is rather limited, since Hicks is not a great believer in aesthetic rules or the value of so-called good taste, but as a souvenir album, it charts Hicks's personal creative journey of the last few years, il...
British designer David Hicks (1929-1998) wowed the English decorating world with his bold geometric prints, electrifying color combinations, and quirky mix of antique and contemporary furniture. Thanks to his prodigious talents, his gift for publicity, and his connection to the royal family through his wife, Lady Pamela Mountbatten (cousin of Prince Philip), Hicks attracted an A-list clientele. For decades, Hicks documented every salient moment of his life in scrapbooks, amassing 24 volumes filled with press clippings, invitations, swatches of his signature textiles, sketches of interiors, magazine articles on his projects, and hundreds of photographs, mainly family snapshots but also his own photos of people like Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly, and Andy Warhol. Many of the pages, now thumbed and foxed, are laid out in a collage style, and several are embellished with drawings and notes, revealing Hicks's thoughts and sense of whimsy. Here, his son, Ashley Hicks, has chosen more than 325 of the best pages--providing not just a window into the extraordinary world of David Hicks but also a fascinating time capsule.
David Hicks is considered to be among the foremost interior designers of the 20th century. From the decoration of his own house in London in 1956--in powerful colors that heralded an end to the drab, postwar English look--he set the pace for interior design both in Europe and America. David Hicks: Designer looks at the most vital period of his career, from 1958 to 1979. Presenting 200 original color photos, many never before published, it displays a decorating oeuvre that ranged from apartments for Helena Rubinstein, the Niarchos children, and the Prince of Wales to yachts, private jets, and the glamorous New York offices of British Steel. Central to the book are the interiors of his own houses, where he mixed antique and modern with a groundbreaking command of style and color. This book is a splendid overview of the entire range of the designer's vision and talents, with chapters on English and New York interiors interspersed with sections on his designs for stores and offices, furniture and carpets, fabrics and wallpapers, tablescapes, graphics, and books.
A memoir of a singular childhood in England and India by the daughter of Lord Louis and Edwina Mountbatten. Pamela Mountbatten entered a remarkable family when she was born in 1929. As the younger daughter of a glamorous heiress and a British earl, Pamela spent much of her early life with her sister, nannies, and servants-- and a menagerie that included, at different times, a bear, two wallabies, a mongoose, and a lion. Her parents each had lovers who lived openly with the family. The house was full of guests like Sir Winston Churchill, Noël Coward, Douglas Fairbanks, and the Duchess of Windsor. When World War II broke out, Pamela and her sister were sent to live in New York City with Mrs. ...
Two talented designers combine their creative visions--resulting in a magnificent fusion of classic and contemporary styles. How do they achieve this incredible synthesis of the old and new, something so free-flowing and organic, with vibrant touches of ethnic and modern? Here are their inspirations and philosophy, and an intimate view of their process of creation. Watch Ashley's furniture and Allegra's textiles as they evolve in the studio, and how the couple brings together different elements, balances contrasting features, and introduces color, form, and texture. Finally, see the completed rooms and how they fit the needs of individual clients, from a maisonette in London to a large villa in Turin. The challenges of six problem rooms are analyzed and met. The results: sophisticated, enduring looks for the timeless interior and a unique portrait of a very special partnership.
"Terrific."—Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes and Letters to Camondo "Makes you want to travel, do somersaults and stretches, drink champagne in evening dress, read, think ... Intoxicating."—Publishers Weekly Along the French Riviera in the early 1900s, an illustrious family in thrall to classical antiquity builds a fabulous villa—a replica of a Greek palace, complete with marble columns and frescoes depicting mythological gods. The Reinachs--related to other wealthy Jews like the Rothschilds and the Ephrussis—attempt to recreate a "pure beauty" lost in the 20th century. The narrator of this brilliant novel calls the imposing house an act of delirium, "proof that one...
Carlos Mota is the mastermind behind the amazing photographs seen in all the top design magazines, including Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, House & Garden, Vanity Fair, Departures, and Interior Design. His gifted and educated eye for selecting furniture, textiles, accessories, and art has produced some memorable imagery. Mota is known for adding color and sophistication to the set, often by way of his elegant flower arrangements. Mota’s styling influences the way we see the world’s most extraordinary interiors, bringing vivacity to the pictures of some of the finest homes. Beautifully illustrated, A Touch of Style presents a curated journey through some of these incredible spaces.
"Imogen Taylor started work at Colefax & Fowler in 1949, and spent many years as assistant to John Fowler. She went on to become one of the most prominent interior decorators of the latter part of the twentieth century, working in Britain and the Middle East and extensively in the United States. She retired in 1999, after fifty years at Colefax & Fowler. On the Fringe is a unique chronicle of the twentieth-century decorative scene and the changing social world"--Cover.