Why Nicky Haslam stripped off for art

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4 September 2014

A smallish figure dressed head to toe as Farmer Giles — tweed cap and hacking jacket, Burberryesque check scarf and caramel brown trousers rolled up like plus fours — emerges through a side door into the newly refurbished Beaufort Bar at the Savoy, part of its swanky £220 million facelift.

Nicky Haslam takes one look through huge horn-rimmed glasses at the glittering black and gold interior — all brocaded cushions, gilded alcoves, shiny tables and black velvet drapery — before deciding a change of clothes for the photoshoot is in order. "I think the grey would be better," he says, nodding to his assistant and peering into the large canvas tote bag on his shoulder.

I'm impressed but not surprised by his versatility. After all, the 71-year-old interior designer, author and perennial party-goer is as famous for his chameleon changes of appearance as for who he knows or how he makes his living.

Without further ado, he disappears behind a huge black velvet curtain, re-emerging moments later. Farmer Giles has turned into thermal silver fox, wearing a grey cable-knit jumper and grey-and-black patterned scarf and leggings. He wants to be photographed holding a cigarette, too, even though he gave up smoking years ago and it's forbidden on the premises, because "it makes me look, you know, like someone between rehearsals, like those ballet dancers".

We're here because Haslam will be singing in a cabaret in the famous room — where Gershwin launched Rhapsody in Blue — at the end of the month. It's for his friends, he says, which is a slight problem because he has so many. The one evening has been extended to two but even so, he says, it's difficult to tie people down — although with a self-effacement that turns out to be quite characteristic, he stresses that "it's not about me singing, it's about the songs I sing. They are the most wonderful lyrics, the most wonderful love songs ever written by Cole Porter".

He is Haslam's all-time hero: "He was the person I always wanted to meet more than anybody. When I had polio [Haslam contracted the disease when he was seven and was bedridden for three years], my mother would come back from America — I had an American sister — with records like Kiss Me Kate."

And of course, being Nicky Haslam, he made his wish come true, wangling an invitation to dine at the great man's Waldorf Towers apartment when he first went to New York in the early Sixties. In his memoir, Redeeming Features, out in paperback this month, Haslam describes Porter as "a small immaculate figure, fragile, like a precious object made by Cellini". Haslam, who has always liked to surround himself with the beautiful — whether people, objects or fashion — announces he will be wearing shot green and shot purple suits for the shows: "Anthony Price for Topman, naturally, because I live in Topman."

Apart from the knitted sleeveless pullover from Oxfam, this means all the Farmer Giles kit he has changed back into, now the pictures are done, including his shoes, a pair of scuffed pale camel suede lace-ups. "They're brand new by the way. So clever to make them look old."

He worries he's put on weight, now that he no longer dances all night long as often as he did, but that hasn't stopped him from stripping off to pose for a picture taken by subversive portrait photographer James Ostrer, which has just gone on display at the National Portrait Gallery. Like so much of what has happened in Haslam's action-packed life, it came about through a combination of chance and Haslam's indomitable "seize the day" spirit.

"Lucian Freud sent some chairs to my office to be re-covered. I thought he meant just some chairs. And then at the office arrived the iconic chairs from Lucian's portraits — the black one with the stuff coming out and the one he painted turned upside down, and I said, But you can't re-cover these, they're objets d'art, they should be in the Tate or something'. So Lucian came to the office, which caused a stir. Famous people have come to the office but no one as famous as Lucian Freud. We decided we'd re-cover two and recreate the black one completely."

Coincidentally, Ostrer, a friend of someone working at Haslam's office, happened to see them and asked Haslam whether he would ever think of sitting as a Lucian Freud, naked in that chair.
Displaying his trademark mix of egotism and modesty, he explains: "I wouldn't do it unless it was trying to be a Lucian Freud portrait. The whole point is that it's playing on a work of art and therefore it's got a kind of validity. If it was just a picture of me naked, that'd be disgraceful; it would be pretentious and terrible." Yet he would be happy to see it on permanent display if the National Portrait Gallery acquires it, even though he says he does not regard himself as famous. "Most people don't have a clue who I am so it doesn't matter if I'm naked or not. Only about 10 people in the world would say oooh, look, it's Nicky Haslam'."

Even if he believes that, he is famous for having met and known the famous. Beginning with Tallulah Bankhead and ending with Paris Hilton, his memoir chronicles the breakfast, lunches, dinners and intimate suppers, both orchestrated and chance, with royals, film stars, politicians, writers, artists, rock stars and models.

Never as indiscreet or candid as the diarist James Lees-Milne, Haslam, who like Lees-Milne went to Eton, displays the same nonchalant confidence and charm. His friends are all "extraordinary" or "wonderful" and he never wants to give offence, so if he does, it's unwitting.

"People banged on about the Tony Snowdon thing," he says, referring to the story of their "brief romance" and other titbits. "Tony adored it. He said it was wonderful."

Remarkably, Haslam has never kept a diary because he has a photographic memory of conversations and places, although for the next tranche of memoir — not due for another five years — he probably will. "I can sort of hear conversations from my childhood. I can see people's lips moving. And I suppose that's from having polio; one looked at people so much, looking up at them from my bed, more than if one had been running around playing games."

He also believes that the childhood illness which so very nearly killed him has given him a kind of immunity to many things, including a cancer scare earlier this year. Far from re-evaluating his life or facing up to big questions about his mortality as a result, Haslam seems to be embracing life with characteristic business-as-usual brio.

He is working harder than ever and his design business now employs 18 people with an annual turnover of £3-£4 million and growing. He's sanguine about the future, too: "If you've got something wrong, you have to trust in the doctor who's doing it and if you don't you're fucked. You can't worry. You can't just say will it be all right?' If it's not all right, it's not all right. You can't guide it, it's a leap of faith."

He says the same was true when he had a facelift and eye laser treatment several years ago, after which he dyed his hair black and changed into a Liam Gallagher-lookalike leather man. "It was a form of hero worship. I like looking like people. I'm a terrible actor and I can't do voices but I'm quite a good visual mimic.

"I like looking at people I've seen and thinking, Oh, I can get that together. Great!'" But that only explains a part of why Haslam keeps reinventing his look.

I suspect it's also because it deflects attention from the person inside, who comes across as quite tender and loving, but has suffered repeated heartbreak. As well as the numerous crushes on both men and women, Haslam has had several serious long-term relationships — when he was young, with the artist Michael Wishart, who was older and an unpredictable drug-abusing alcoholic; with the American banking heir James Davison; and, more recently, with designer Paolo Moschino. He says he is still in love with all of them. "I think if people fall out of love with you, you can't blame them. It just happens.

Unless you're the one who falls out of love, you always stay in love with them. I'm still very much in love, less with Michael because he was more difficult. But Jimmy I'm certainly very much in love with in my heart of hearts, and Paolo. I'm very faithful and they were long relationships."

Still, he says he has found "a whole slew of new friends who are very loving". He adds: "I love them and they love me. People say as they get older they only want to see their old friends. I only want to see my new friends. I think I've become better at seeing different sides of people now too. I suddenly see how wonderful people are, it's no longer a blinkered view of aren't they fun, let's go to a party and dance'."

A funny thing to say, really, because in the Peter Pan world of Nicky Haslam, everyone has always been "wonderful".

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