Things that T, The New York Times Style Magazine found in ultra-glam interior designer Nicky Haslam's new London flat: a life-size nude self-portrait in the style of Lucien Freud, four other huge paintings of himself, a bedroom floor of wall-to-wall AstroTurf, an "S.U.V.-size chandelier" in the style of Alberto Giacometti made from metal pipes, "counterfeit terra-cotta statues," a 16-foot-high fireplace of faux marble. In other words, a bunch of knock-offs and a flair for extroverted, taste-breaking irreverence. Haslam's new home has all the exuberance and eclecticism of the man's CV, which includes a 42-year career as a designer for the likes of Mick Jagger and Charles and Maurice Saatchi, a column in the London Evening Standard, blogging for The Telegraph, watercolor painting, and an album called Midnight Matinée. "I love fakes, I always have," Haslam explains to the magazine. "As long as they're not trying to pass as the real thing. I don't want anything too precious here."
The dining room features a built-in hutch, an outsized cabinet, and a lamp of metal chinoiserie. A portrait of Haslam's friend Lady Penn inspired the peacock-blue walls. According to T, Haslam's circle of friends has also included "Francis Bacon, Truman Capote, Princess Diana, Joan Didion, Jack Nicholson, Gore Vidal, Diana Vreeland, Andy Warhol and the Duchess of Windsor."
Offsetting the somewhat formal living room is Haslam's overbearing "Giacomettiesque" chandelier. In the oxblood-colored, AstroTurf-carpeted master bedroom, a bed of northern Italian wood is set against a "wood-and-canvas baldachin inspired by a Cecil Beaton sketch."
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