Fashion Neurosis with Nicky Haslam

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1:10Hi, come in.

1:16Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Nicky Haslam. I'm extremely happy to be here doing it. Can you tell me why you chose the clothes that you're wearing today and what you're wearing? Well, I'm wearing head-to-toe Primark because I think they are all the brilliant. And I like clothes that are sort of up-to-date and yet not identifiable. And I think that Primark is very clever at hitting the right fashion mark for a certain time and then you throw it away. But the problem is they're so well made, you can't throw them away. Well, that's a vote of confidence. Yes, I'm very confident in Primark. And you come from an aristocratic family.

2:10I wondered how your parents dressed and how young you were when you diverged into your true self as you felt it. My parents were quite old. My mother was born in 1896. and her godmother was Queen Victoria. So you could add that one up.

2:35And I really remember, I was born just before the war, so they had sort of wartime clothes. But my father changed a dinner jacket every evening coming back for dinner from working at the city. And my mother wore sort of very plain red and black clothes. I mean very well cut but not very distinguished because you couldn't buy clothes much during the war but then she did take me to Paris straight after the war to see the new look with Dior and we saw the whole collection of Monsieur Dior's and we saw Monsieur Dior we saw the whole collection and my mother thought it was ghastly I went and bought some of Jacques Fatt instead but it was always said rich women dress at Dior, smart women dress at fat.

3:28So she was right. God, that's fascinating. Did you agree? How old were you when you saw that? And did you agree with that? Eight or something. God. What did you think of Dior when you saw it? Well, I just remember the Salo, exactly as you think of it, that Dior grey with the chairs and a runway and red curtains with the palm trees. pulling them back, you know, when the models came through. What I most remember, the models were so old because, I mean, they seemed old to me. They probably weren't. They were like 30. But they were famous for moving perfectly. And as they moved, they showed exactly how the dress was cut.

4:11And the customers used to stop them and feel the material and check out the frock as it passed them. And they were all given these names. They said, au printemps would come out. and then Alapage. It was so funny having these names. God, how amazing. But it was very moving to see because it was very organisingly beautiful. It sounds absolutely wonderful. Amazing that you can remember it from then. You know, it makes such an impression. Yeah, it really did. Then later on when I met Yves Saint Laurent introduced him to forced him on down of Vogue because she thought only Balenciaga could make clothes and I kept talking about this boy I met in Paris who was now working for Fignon and she kept oh no no no no finally she twigged and she put a lot of she suddenly put a lot of Yves in the magazine and Yves came to New York for his first ever trip to New York and he took me out to dinner at the Pavillon to thank me.

5:25Wow. That is absolutely amazing. So she found Yves Saint Laurent through you. It really was through me. Yeah. But the only other time I went to the Pavillon was that famous old dresser's hand of Mamboucher. Oh, yes. Who dressed the Dutch as a Winslow. What? Wallace Simpson? He made the famous wedding dress. Rather Indian, I thought it was. But he was a wonderful dress designer and a sweet man with wonderful taste. He'd be the interior designer. Like all good dressmakers, usually they start as interior designers. Did they? Or as sort of room designers rather than interior designers. They make beautiful rooms and then they put beautiful clothes in them.

6:14Or Eve being exactly one of them. and what was it like for you when you were at Eton did you mess about with the uniform or did you revel in it yeah I sort of fiddled about with my uniform I dyed my hair blonde which wasn't very popular and I had but I had something lined in red which was absolutely taboo but otherwise I didn't matter around the uniform too much because you had everyone had their own uniform made at the local tailor, is that right? What were they called, those tailors? Welsh and Geoffrey's. I thought afterwards they made suits for me for a bit when I left Eton. And of course, when I left Eton, I just wanted to look like a teddy boy.

6:59That was the sort of look I would always thought was sexy when I was young. Skin tight, black and long jackets and Tony Curtis hairdos, you know. I thought that was the most wonderful look. Did you wear that? Oh, yes. I've always been aptly street conscious yeah it's true you put your money where your mouth is you don't seem to fantasise about these things as if they're not available to you, you do them before anybody else well as soon as I can I suppose I see them on somebody else and say I can do that I mean the mod look was absolutely beautiful David Bailey says in his book that he and I invented the mod look long before the Beatles and their silly jackets well I was going to ask you about David Bailey because your love of beauty has often entangled you with exceptional people including him yeah that's true what did you feel when you first set eyes on him?

8:06well I was through an extraordinary man called Simon Fleet who picked me up actually thank God he did in Trafalgar Square and he was the most fascinating man he knew everybody like Cecil Beaton Oliver Messel and Freddie Ashton all that world, Diana Cooper everybody and so I'd met all of them while I was at Eton and Chip's Shannon all that whole famous world I knew when I was like 16 17 and when I saw David I went to John French, a photographer, was a great friend of mine. And he said, come to the studio one day. And I went, and there was these three assistants, Duffy, Donovan, and David, all three working on three piles a week.

8:55Gosh. And I took one look at David and fell in love with him. He was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. He was so good looking. And we became great friends. In fact, he lived with me in my little house in Ortonoo with his first wife, Rosemary. And then with Jean for a bit. Jean Shrimpton? Yeah. God. He brought Jean for dinner one night, saying, you've got this new bird, et cetera. And I said, well, never make anything of her. She's too gangby and hideous. You got that one wrong, one of the few things. Yeah, and then she became the model of water and again, one of my closest friends.

9:32And of course, you had to have a scooter. Did you ride a scooter? as well well only because david i had to i don't i was i was becoming david and then i went to america with him and there was a there was a famous interior designer in the 70s called jeffrey benison who who's invented shabby chic he was known as big carol big carol with that group of bad bad queens that have drawn the west one i forgot all that those were they invent they invented that thing called Pallari that came from them. They invented the whole thing? Yeah, it's Pallari. It's not Pallari. It's Pallari. It's Camp Italian. And they all spoke in it.

10:16Geoffrey spoke in it too. Raya Vada Haraya, dear. Vada Haraya, dear. And what did that mean? Vada Haraya? Like Italian for look at Vada. And then words were spelled backwards. Raya was hair. That's spelled backwards. and then Kenneth Williams sort of took it up and what did Big Carol wear? well he was he was quite he wasn't slim but his drag which he wore to go on aeroplanes so the men would pick him up when he went to Morocco he'd wear drag and he'd say I've got these children holding my tights they'd say what these Moroccan men what I don't have to wear tights to keep up my knickers, all that's going on.

11:05But his drag was made by Eddie Calvert, the man with the golden trumpets, mother. How about that? No. Yeah. God, that's niche. How amazing.

11:19And when I first met you, you were living in your house in Gloucestershire and you had... No, Hampshire. Oh, Hampshire, was that... Yeah, the first one was Hampshire. and you I remember meeting you and you had white bouffant hair and your I think your heart had been broken and then the next time I saw you you had made a sort of metamorphosis into Liam Gallagher and you look absolutely incredible that's 20 years between that oh really yeah I don't think I don't I didn't have white before. I hope I had sort of mouse gunned before. I'm probably exaggerating. I've always dreaded white hair. That's why I put this so-called Daphne Guinness bit in the front.

12:09Can you tell me about your hair today? Well, Janet DeBotton, you know Janet, said to me, you cannot have white hair. You've got to put some streaks in it. So I tried putting streaks in and And it didn't look too sort of Liberace-esque, really. So I just thought, well, then I saw Daphne. I didn't want to have this thing in front. So I do it with eyelash dye. God, that's so good. About once a week. It's so inventive. It sort of gives a bit of edge to the face, doesn't it? Yeah. Apparently, it's really important to keep the top part of your hair darker if it starts to lighten. Yeah. like old man's hair gets darker at the back anyway that's a strange thing yeah but the the liam gallagher look was just such a masterpiece of reinvention i mean it wasn't even reinvention i'd done all the cowboy stuff you know i don't want the cowboy the ranch and the hell's angel look and everything when i lived in america i loved all that look anything fashionable how did that yeah how god there's so many things to ask about these looks but tell me tell me in detail about the liam gallagher look because it was so glamorous and you looked so well i just thought he was simply wonderful he wore those sort of clothes that are like i'm wearing now actually this primark thing is based on the the liam gallagher revival these colors are his colors and I just thought he was wonderful.

13:52So I thought, well, let's do that one. And then I'd read, or maybe it was an exciting rumour that went round that you dyed your hair, including your pubes. Well, I think quite a lot of men do that, by the way. I still do. Nothing's worse than a grey bush. Nothing worse than the world. What do you dye it with? Hair dye, I mean, it's the same as this. Just brush it on. Eyelash dye. I happen to use the eyelash dye because it's the easiest thing to do it with. But I don't think other men are quite so clever at doing their bits like I am. They probably use some beard dye or something. And if you fancy someone and you don't like something they're wearing, does it kill your attraction?

14:42Yes, completely. But I don't fancy anybody if I don't like what they're wearing. I mean, clothes make people very attractive, I think. And are there any kind of allergic kind of sirens that go off with anything in particular? No, I think if anybody gets it perfectly right, it's attractive, it looks wonderful. I mean, even a farmer can look wonderful in the right gear, or a farmer, you know. Especially. and also I think nowadays everybody dresses exactly the same from morning till night especially men well women too but the old days you saw things there were people in uniform there were proper policeman uniforms there were nuns there were boys in leather on motorcycles you know the couriers there was a different different attire different looks in the street now everyone is exactly the same I suppose all those different looks gave something to have a fetish about didn't they which was so much more fun yes I think certainly those uniforms were a fetish people love those but you're not you're not allowed to wear you get spat on in the street if you wear a uniform have you tried it too sad there was so well I mean guards uniforms were just amazing yeah I like the way people I love a uniform I mean I suppose a suit is a bit of a uniform and I do love a suit but yes a well cut suit is fantastic I've got a few which is my best is one I found it was made in Chicago in 1939 or 38 and it still and it fits me I've had second-hand stuff.

16:38It's wonderful. Did your father pass you down anything, or were they not to your taste? I didn't have since. I liked, nor did my brothers. It really came up from the streets upwards rather than grandeur downwards. And what was the first streetwear that you adopted? I suppose that sort of teddy boy look when I was almost pre-eaten. So you were 13 or something? I used to see these teddy boys in our local town, Cheshire. We'd see them lounging them out outside the Assolvo cinema insolent in their beauty with that sort of curled up black hair and the long jackets. They were so glamorous. Yeah, they really were.

17:33I think the proportion is so good, the long jacket and then the long legs. And the famous shoes, Brothel Creepers. Brothel Creepers were fantastic. Because in the punk time there was this kind of, you know, there was this gang warfare between punks and Teds. Mods and Rockers, yeah, punks and Teds. Punks and Teds. Teds didn't have a... Teds had gone out by the time punk came along, I think. Well, there was sort of remnants, because I remember being excited about being afraid to get sort of, you know. Oh, God, yes, there was that tension. Yeah. And you see those newsreels of mods and rockers having fights and brightened each other.

18:21And you notice they're all absolutely the most wonderful skins. They're thin as rails. They've got glossy hair. all this rubbish they were underfed after the war completely untrue people had much better figures talking of which do you work out you're looking very spelled good god never once never been to a gentleman in my life really you're looking very spelled it's enough I was cancer helped oh Nicky well only you would be able to make an asset out of that you look so well and marvellous I didn't have very bad cancer but the doctor the oncologist had made a mistake and when I was finally operated on by the famous Dr Ali who's head of the NHS he had to make an incisional there all the way down huge so when it was being sewed up I just said to him listen, can't you take a few more inches?

19:29And he did. He said, he won't have a belly button. I said, who the fuck cares? And he pulled it in. It's never gone away. God. It's never come back. That's amazing. Again, it's like you're brilliant. You seem to have an incredible kind of instinct for perfect timing and to even think of that at that time, whereas instead of thinking, I wish I'd done that. No, I did. I kept thinking before he did it I kept thinking can I ask do I dare ask him I'm quite boring about that I heal very well I've got very healing skin which is a great secret of any kind of facelift or have you had any facelifts? God yes how many?

20:18I had a full facelift once in what 1990 90 everything except the brow I didn't need a brow lift thank God because that's the hardest bit they can't put it anywhere and I went to a wonderful man called Brian Mayhew and I went and I went to him and he said yes I can do it and I kept thinking but will it hurt? he said I said but is it is it going to be is it going to show and he'd say finally I said it's not the eighth time will it hurt and he said listen Nicky he said for what you want done roughly for vanity I can do it by sleep it's when people have their faces shot off in Afghanistan I have to worry God that was a bit of thought yeah think about it's the easiest thing in the world skin is the most plastic stuff there is.

21:26And it's a complete... I have these expensive facelifts in California, complete rip-offs. Mine was£3 ,000. And then I had the chin done, the wattles done about ten years later, because it doesn't matter anybody's face, as long as you've got lines anywhere. Do you remember Bertie Hope Davis? Yes. Or Nan Kempner? I never met her, but... They all had line faces, but they had clean chins. It's the most important thing in the world for a man or a mother to have a clean chin. No skin here. Yeah. Then you can wear beautiful clothes and everything. Also, lines are fine, but tour line is everything, isn't it?

22:08It's just, I suppose, it's a reminder of always there you are in there, even if things have changed a bit. I don't get lines on it, even though I haven't even got bra lines there. But if I did, I wouldn't mind. Yeah. As long as they look neat. And so you've only had one facelift and a neck lift? Yeah. You look pretty fantastic. And ages ago. I had it done at the right time. I haven't done young if you haven't done. What do you think is the best age to have a facelift? I suppose I must have been about 60, you know, somewhere. I just thought the time has come. Yeah. You know, you sort of know. and you've met everyone from Queen Elizabeth to Andy Warhol to did you meet Wallace Simpson?

22:57yes I did, I loved her really? she was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful woman and I'm glad to see she's getting recognition as a new book so I've got a review about her sort of re-inhabited again she was extraordinary, so nice what did you love about her? well she was so A she was astonishing looking I mean not beautiful but astonishing chic and well macchiée and coiffey and everything but sorry to be called don't worry when I first met her I was asked whether I worked on Vogue in New York and the social editor said to me would you like to have lunch with the Duchess would I so we go to the colony the famous colony with a lot of other grand ladies and we sit in the famous booth at the end so we had to have a show where everybody could see you going to the sort of New York thing and suddenly there was a place beside me and suddenly there was a total silence in the room and the Dutch that had come in the door was standing there and people went and then you heard teaspoons drop and she looked so extraordinary so ravishing and fresh in a wonderful Dior suit black gloves black handbag bow in her hair and she walked through the room sort of gently saying hello to friends she came down to step for something she said hi Wallace straight off so I said hello or something and then the woman was giving the lunch she said, I had long hair at the time and Kitty said we call Nicky our beetle and I said the beetles, don't you just love them you can't admit she was wonderful and she sang yay yay yay and all that the word is sassy really she wasn't bright she was funny and sassy and she made the party go and she was incredibly kind.

25:12If she said she'd do something, she'd did it. If she said I'll see you, I think she was on time. I loved her. And can you tell me more about your biker boy? So you were a biker boy in Arizona. There's no style that's off limits to you. You're not snobbish in any way about a look. no I I met a whole lot of biker sort of Hell's Angel boys with their Harleys in some Phoenix and we all got together we started a shop to make choppers you know Harleys and it was called the Chopper Shop with all these boys from Phoenix and I had the old gear. Some I still got my Hell's Angel jacket. Which Nico, the singer, used to borrow.

26:13No. Nico? When she sang, yeah. I had the jacket in New York and then the Hell's Angel sings, but I know. Nico used to borrow the jacket. There's pictures of her in it. I've still got it. God, and how did you meet them? Were you in love with someone? What the Hells Angels was? One was just incredibly good looking. You looked like R.J. Wagner or one of those 70s movie stars. I think I was filling up my car and he stopped and he mentioned something and I said God I love your bike. He said why did you get one mate or something? So it all happened like that. That's so good. They used to come and stay at the ranch.

27:03Or for lunch at the ranch. Did you have a ranch there? Yeah, I bought a ranch outside Phoenix. Breeding horses. Well, that was the cowboy fashion. Who hasn't wanted to be a cowboy? Getting the clothes right for that's very important. For the cowboy? What were you wearing? You wear Levi jeans, ragged a jacket, and some of your shirts. You never have the same, all three matches. You never wear the same brand. what was it wrangler levi's and lee was it lee yeah levi levi jeans wrangler jackets and lee shirts you're right god seems early on that you shed any idea of english snobbery that might have been lurking in your own background and yet your how common rulings have struck a chord among high and low society.

27:59Well, they're not so much common. It's not fish knives and mirrors and things. It's more what annoys one. Things that used to be sort of exclusive and then everybody has it, like rescue dogs and things. I mean, these girls who live in the country as a rich hedge fund's wives have every Birkin bag and every shudder and everything and a rescued dog. It's sort of fashionable. It's so tragic. Your Christmas tea towel with your How Common list on is a must-have in our household. Oh, I hope it spreads. Spread the word. Oh, it's spreading like wildfire. I think one of my favourite How Commons was Loving Your Parents.

28:45That was the original one. Really? That was... Shall I tell you the story of that? Yes. there was a one of my youth there was a wonderful old woman called Lady Juliet Duff she was very grand the mother of Michael Duff you might have met Michael and her mother was Lady Rippon who'd bought the ballet the young left ballet to England she was an extraordinary woman a great very aristocratic and she lived here Cecil Beaton in Wiltshire and she was always having slightly sort of on the edge with Cecil because and I was staying with her and she was talking to Cecil on the telephone and getting quite cross.

29:30She put it down and she said, one can tell Cecil's common, loves his mother. Thank God.

29:41Because parents didn't love their children then. God, that's so interesting. It wasn't faster when he gave the child to daddy and forgot it. And how did you, what was your experience of that? Because you seem so sort of well-grounded in yourself and people are famously kind of reduced by this abandonment at such an early age. Oh, I was lucky because I had polio and my mother had a wonderful Austrian, can you believe the word, ladies' maid. never think you'd hear them again would you who sort of became my mother's maid is maid in London and then when I got Polo she became my sort of looker after she was Teresa she was the love of my life I adored her much more than my parents wanted to be with her and she was gay and funny and loved movies and would tell me would come back from the movies and tell me about seeing Bob Hope in, I don't know, the movies and sort of bebop.

30:50She was amazing. My parents were hardly there. The only thing my mother did in the evening, she used to, I had a gramophone in my room and she used to bring her smart friends in, roll up the carpet and dance to Foxtrotts on the gramophone in my bedroom, which was quite funny. Gosh. But Teresa really looked after our daughter.

31:17she was central to my life the first half I went to Eaton cocky came back was rude to her and she left the next day oh no gosh but she really showed you love and that clearly made you strong it was so moving I can't tell you So you were the love of her life as well? Yeah, maybe. We'd been through a lot together with polio. I mean, she wiped my bum, she did everything. I couldn't do anything. How old were you when you had polio? Seven. And how long were you in bed for then? About 18 months. The thing took about 18 months. I was in bed for, I suppose, nearly a year, in a cast. I couldn't move. and then I had to be taught to walk again and trees would help with that and everything.

32:17When I lived in Marrakesh when I was seven, I spent a lot of time with... This woman looked after me when my mother had gone to Algeria and she looked after children who were... And she was a nurse rehabilitating them from polio and they used to rush around on all fours with their calipers. Yeah. And I used to do that too, but I didn't have any calipers. And I used to love scottling about, pretending. I remember, it's so perverse when you're a child. I just remember I wished I'd had polio so I could be like them. That's very, what's it called, reversal of fortune. Yeah, I know. I'm obviously very lucky I didn't, but that was...

33:07Oh, and of course with James. Your James. I went through a big skinhead fashion phase. Really? Yeah. So my ex-husband, James Fox, who... Was he a big lover? I know, obviously, you're not romantically involved, but... I was insanely a lover. And when did you meet him? When did that happen? I met him at Catherine Guinness' Coming Out Dance. And Romana McKeown introduced us. and James was sitting in a corner with that slight scowl that sort of beautiful scowl he had

33:48bored I think and Ramadis he was a great friend of Ramadis and Rory's and I just and I'm looking at him and we started talking and I said and he said call me, give me a number and I called him next day from that call box in the Sloan Square at Clifton Place. I sort of practically kissed the call box. And he said, let's have lunch. And we became great, great friends. God. I adore him. Yeah, he's wonderful. He's the best. When was that, in the 70s? It was when I had the Rancho Arizona. 60s, God. Because I was living at the Rancho Arizona but I'd come over for a long summer. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?