【Book Description】
Beyond his remarkable talent as a designer, David Hicks was a master of self-presentation and media strategy. Thanks in part to his marriage to Lady Pamela Mountbatten—cousin to Prince Philip—Hicks quickly became a favorite within high society. His client list reads like a who’s who of the elite, including royalty, political figures, and international celebrities. More than just a decorator, Hicks became a defining figure of refined English lifestyle in the postwar era.
Throughout his life, Hicks documented his creative journey and personal experiences with obsessive detail, compiling an extraordinary collection of 24 scrapbooks. These volumes contain everything from press clippings, party invitations, and swatches of his iconic fabric designs, to interior sketches, magazine features, personal notes, and hundreds of photographs—many of which were family snapshots, but also include images of cultural icons like Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly, and Andy Warhol, often taken by Hicks himself. Designed with the flair of a visual editor, each page is a collage-like composition, interwoven with hand-drawn illustrations and handwritten annotations that reflect Hicks’s wit, precision, and his devotion to aesthetics in every detail of life.
Now, his son Ashley Hicks has carefully selected more than 325 of the most vivid and revealing pages from this extraordinary archive, compiling them into a lavish volume. More than a monograph, this book offers a deeply personal glimpse into David Hicks’s world—one that also serves as a cultural time capsule of postwar British design, style, and society.
Through its rich visual content and layered narratives, this book allows us to rediscover a daring yet elegant design pioneer, and to witness how he transformed life itself into an art form worthy of documentation, collage, and expression. A treasure trove of inspiration for design lovers, this volume is also a poignant meditation on beauty, memory, and creative legacy.
【Book Details】
Author: Ashley Hicks
Publisher: Vendome Press
Dimensions: 31 × 24 cm
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 354 pages