| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £1.55
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Sheer Opulence for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.55, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Nicholas Haslam is one of the world's finest interior designers, sought by rock stars, royalty and the aristocracy alike. His interiors have chutzpah and a touch of opulence that seduce the moment you catch a glimpse. Haslam style makes rooms look glamorous and sexy, yet livable, practical and, above all, flattering to their owner and their surroundings. He makes great use of the completely unexpected and is known for effects such as stunning mosaic gilt-effect walls, linen carpets, silver-papered ceilings, slashed leather curtains and Picasso-inspired fabric footstools. The mix of deeply serious, grand and impressive with glamour, charm and, most of all, wit is the Haslam trademark. "Sheer Opulence", illustrated throughout with specially commissioned photography by David Montgomery, reveals Haslam's decorating secrets and instinctive approach to both classic and contemporary interiors in a visual diary with Haslam's own watercolour plans accompanying the stunning photographs of rooms around the world. "Sheer Opulence" shows you how to aspire to this look and bring glamour and style to everyday living.
About the Author
Nicholas Haslam has been an interior decorator since 1971. Educated at Eton, where he decorated his study with fake leopard-skin walls and a carpet of artificial grass, he moved to New York in his twenties to work as Art Director of US Vogue, then lived on a ranch in Arizona and latterly in Los Angeles. Now based in London, he designs town and country interiors all over England, Europe, and the US for private clients including British royalty, celebrities, and rock stars. His clients include Bryan Ferry and Ringo Starr, as well as Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. He works from his design studio just off Sloane Square in London. Nicholas Haslam writes on style, travel, and social affairs for Vogue, The World of Interiors, House & Garden, Tatler and The Spectator. His autobiography Redeeming Features is published by Random House this November.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm reading Nicholas Haslam's autobiography, 'Redeeming Features' at the moment, and so enjoying it that I decided I'd treat myself to his interiors book, 'Sheer Opulence'. It's recently been re-issued in paperback so I figured "no great loss" if I didn't like it. I live in a titchy little terrace myself, but I do like my property porn, and Haslam's reputation as the best in the business suggested something really quite fantastic.
Well, what a disappointment. The cover of this book shows a really lovely, restrained yet homely and restful interior, and definitely whets the appetite for more; then you get into the body of the book and discover it's full of some of the naffest, most dated rooms you ever saw in your life.
If you are a faux-toff desperate to make your newly-minted money look old, Haslam seems to be your man. Unfortunately he loves his frilly-knicker curtains, gopping rococo antiques, and fussy fabrics and upholstery; never layers the passing of time or incorporates the patina of age and wear; and he absolutely doesn't know when to stop. It's like a caricature of 'posh', and exactly how a sink-estate dweller who's won the lottery might furnish his new country pile.
Haslam's colourways are also very dated (I suspect the publisher didn't bother to incorporate any of Haslam's newer work), and his room treatments devoid of any real interest because everything is simultaneously excessive and totally bare of any real personality. Even in paperback, and even if you merely bought this book to accustom your design eye to tastes that aren't your own, this book is a complete waste of time and money. I'm returning my copy to Amazon, and you should save yourself the trouble of even borrowing it from the library.
Well, what a disappointment. The cover of this book shows a really lovely, restrained yet homely and restful interior, and definitely whets the appetite for more; then you get into the body of the book and discover it's full of some of the naffest, most dated rooms you ever saw in your life.
If you are a faux-toff desperate to make your newly-minted money look old, Haslam seems to be your man. Unfortunately he loves his frilly-knicker curtains, gopping rococo antiques, and fussy fabrics and upholstery; never layers the passing of time or incorporates the patina of age and wear; and he absolutely doesn't know when to stop. It's like a caricature of 'posh', and exactly how a sink-estate dweller who's won the lottery might furnish his new country pile.
Haslam's colourways are also very dated (I suspect the publisher didn't bother to incorporate any of Haslam's newer work), and his room treatments devoid of any real interest because everything is simultaneously excessive and totally bare of any real personality. Even in paperback, and even if you merely bought this book to accustom your design eye to tastes that aren't your own, this book is a complete waste of time and money. I'm returning my copy to Amazon, and you should save yourself the trouble of even borrowing it from the library.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Wonderful book for anyone who likes a bit of the theatrical in their decor. Haslam guides the reader through his thought process for each of the illustrated rooms of his wealthy clientele. The pictures are beautiful and most of his designs have timeless grandeur. I was tempted to buy the book after walking past his Chelsea shop and have not been disappointed. The only failing is that the book could do with an update - the cover is uninspiring and his new ideas deserve inclusion.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Grand Illusions
4 Mar 2004
Format:Hardcover
Nicholas Haslam must surely be the most well-connected decorator of his time. As a very young man he was hanging out with the likes of Lady Diana Cooper and company. The book's inside-flap wastes no time in reminding us of his celebrity clientel.He has had privilged entree to some of the most ravishingly beautiful rooms of his time, and he is an astute observer of the elements that go to make up that thing called Style. His essays are excellently presented, his watercolours delightful.
If only he had brought these talents to bear upon his own interiors, which are at their best merely whimsical and at worst faintly tawdry. The gorgeous photography serves to reinforce the notion that all interior decoration is somehow suspect. Use of materials and architectural detail is arbitrary to a fault.In short, nothing quite rings true, and the quality of Character that this designer admires in the works of his predecessors is disconcertingly absent from these hollow excercises. Perhaps when Evelyn Waugh's Mrs Beaver noted that "decoration is not an exact science" she gave the world something to chew on.
Several years ago Mr Haslam moved into the Hunting Lodge, lived in previously by the great John Fowler. A double paged spread illustrates a corner of the diminutive Sitting Room. A bulky sofa having an array of "accent" cushions is thrust further into the room by a table behind it, and above that table are 18century French engravings in gilt frames. The effect is ludicrous. One hardly expected Nicky Haslam to dupicate the Fowler scheme, but at the very least he might have honored the spirit of the place, and restrained himself from tarting things up.
Nonetheless, this is a fascinating glimpse into a sort of unreal, fantasy world where publicity and social skills count for
something alarmingly persuasive. Being a good interior decorator isn't in the least a simple matter, yet the myth lives on in these pages.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Dated and ugly faux-toff style
12 April 2010
Format:Paperback
I'm reading Nicholas Haslam's autobiography, 'Redeeming Features' at the moment, and so enjoying it that I decided I'd treat myself to his interiors book, 'Sheer Opulence'. It's recently been re-issued in paperback so I figured "no great loss" if I didn't like it. I live in a titchy little terrace myself, but I do like my property porn, and Haslam's reputation as the best in the business suggested something really quite fantastic.
Well, what a disappointment. The cover of this book shows a really lovely, restrained yet homely and restful interior, and definitely whets the appetite for more; then you get into the body of the book and discover it's full of some of the naffest, most dated rooms you ever saw in your life.
If you are a faux-toff desperate to make your newly-minted money look old, Haslam is obviously your man. He seems to love his frilly-knicker curtains, gopping rococo antiques, and fussy fabrics and upholstery; never layers the passing of time or incorporates the patina of age and wear; and he absolutely doesn't know when to stop. It's like a caricature of 'posh', and exactly how a sink-estate dweller who's won the lottery might furnish his new country pile.
Haslam's colourways are also very dated (I suspect the publisher didn't bother to incorporate any of Haslam's newer work), and his room treatments devoid of any real interest because everything is simultaneously excessive and totally bare of any real personality. Even in paperback, and even if you merely bought this book to accustom your design eye to tastes that aren't your own, this book is a complete waste of time and money. I'm returning my copy to Amazon, and you should save yourself the trouble of even borrowing it from the library.
Well, what a disappointment. The cover of this book shows a really lovely, restrained yet homely and restful interior, and definitely whets the appetite for more; then you get into the body of the book and discover it's full of some of the naffest, most dated rooms you ever saw in your life.
If you are a faux-toff desperate to make your newly-minted money look old, Haslam is obviously your man. He seems to love his frilly-knicker curtains, gopping rococo antiques, and fussy fabrics and upholstery; never layers the passing of time or incorporates the patina of age and wear; and he absolutely doesn't know when to stop. It's like a caricature of 'posh', and exactly how a sink-estate dweller who's won the lottery might furnish his new country pile.
Haslam's colourways are also very dated (I suspect the publisher didn't bother to incorporate any of Haslam's newer work), and his room treatments devoid of any real interest because everything is simultaneously excessive and totally bare of any real personality. Even in paperback, and even if you merely bought this book to accustom your design eye to tastes that aren't your own, this book is a complete waste of time and money. I'm returning my copy to Amazon, and you should save yourself the trouble of even borrowing it from the library.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
WOW!
13 Jun 2005
Format:Hardcover
Wonderful book, lots of ideas. This is a decorator who is not afraid to combine "grand" with "simple" and makes it all look great. Here is someone who goes beyond what most people think of as proper and good decorating and because of his ideas and boldness, makes rooms come alive.
Anyone can follow the rules and create a nice room, it takes a creative mind to go beyond that, and this book shows that.
Anyone can follow the rules and create a nice room, it takes a creative mind to go beyond that, and this book shows that.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
