16 June 2015

Room of the Week: Nicky Haslam


Lately I have been obsessed with a hue one might describe as "lavender grey." Fresher than puce, but with more edge than lilac.  

If everything I feel about this color could be transposed into a room, it would be this one designed by Nicky Haslam for a prominent art collector.  Nicky's creative director Colette van den Thillart told me Nicky calls the color "ashes of mauve."  "It's a VERY chalky specialist finish… It is indeed a lavender grey but made more ephemeral by the specialist BARELY there texture."


There isn't anything I don't love here: that it's a London residence with a country house vibe (given off by the floral curtains); the pleated lamp shades threaded through with ribbon; the ceramic asparagus; the chalky white mirrors and moldings; the slightly off-palette upholstery used on a pair of fauteuils which, as Mario Buatta taught me, makes the room look like it evolved over time; and of course the spectacular Picasso over the mantel. Here a Madeleine Castaing maxim comes to mind: that every room should have something ugly in it.  Its rawness and "unpretty" earthy colors add a frisson and make the room anything but old fashioned.


Top photograph by Derry Moore for Architectural Digest.  The project appeared in the December 2010 issue.

2 comments:

JT said...

Of all the N.H. color schemes I have seen, this is by far the most successful. And I have to mention that pair of delightfully and impossibly whacky lanterns with the arms and electric candles added outside the glass!

Karena said...

Emily, Nicky always does design so perfectly lovely!! I still love my signed copy of your book on Madeleine Castaing!

xoxo
Karena
The Arts by Karena
Closer: Michael Clinton