Disrespectful of any convention, David Hicks taught the world that ancient and modern could belong to the same space. As a skilled observer and designer, he suggested that the game of additions between Baroque style details and details close to pop art could have been the right ingredients to give life to a new compositional dynamic.

Born in Coggeshall, England, he began working as an illustrator and designer of breakfast cereal boxes. He later held the position of art teacher in the British Army. His career as an interior designer began in the 1950s thanks to a media success promoted by House & Garden magazine. The project that caused such a sensation was the London residence that the designer decorated for his mother. His iconic and recognizable style made him London’s most sought-after designer and aesthete of the 1960s and 1970s, revolutionizing the world of design for years to come.
It was David Hicks himself who introduced the term “tablescape”, a composition of carefully arranged objects and works of art.

The designer became the rebel prince of English furniture, so defined for his radical departure from traditional British style. He brought forward an iconic taste in interior design, distinguished by bold geometric prints and adventurous color combinations.

In 1960, his marriage to the aristocratic Lady Pamela Mountbatten gave him access to new clients. Britwell House, a Gregorian villa owned by the couple, became home to his main design laboratory, where he began to take on more prestigious assignments. No wallpaper, fabrics or carpets were good enough for Hicks’ tastes, so he began designing his own motifs; It was within the walls of that studio that he created the first graphic design dedicated to his geometric carpets. Shortly thereafter he was commissioned to design the study of the current King Charles III, at that time Prince of Wales.

Hicks liked to combine high and low, blend the old with the new, match the opulent with the sparse. Every detail of his compositions expressed authenticity: from the raw materials, which he preferred over expensive velvet, to the retrieval of furnishings considered ancient or out of fashion from the past, giving them new life through new colours. He loved playing with objects and colors of different shades, associating them with extreme geometries and lively shapes. Thus he managed to reveal how contrasting and unexpected associations were able to make an interior welcoming, alive and never banal.

Recognized as a true decorator, unlike the meaning of designer, Hicks was inspired by the world, capturing the most insignificant details like only an artist. With the ability to take on this role, he considered color the fundamental element, beyond any other raw material. The pleasure in experimenting with different colors, in exploiting their potential, proved to be the key to giving life to creations that later became iconic. “People are often afraid of color.” For Hicks, color gratified, excited and allowed us to restore freshness to an environment, producing a complete transformation at little cost. “Too much time is wasted, too much nonsense, too many rules respected and energy spent in deciding which color will or could be best combined with some other.”

David Hicks was capable of breaking pre-established patterns, of going against a rigidity that he perceived as a suffocating reality, to make room for a charismatic uniqueness. The famous designs of his fabrics, carpets and wallpapers were inspired by pop and optical geometries, the floral stylizations of ancient Ottoman embroidery and the motifs of Islamic ceramics. Hicks’ style remained and still remains an inspiration for designers all over the world, also touching the cinematographic sector, giving life to a real creative orientation for the construction of eclectic sets and scenography.

“the more shades of a particular color you put together, the better the result will be”