When creating our latest collection, GrapHicks, we were clearly, as many others before us, inspired by David Hicks, and most particularly his geometric alphabet. We turned these into a language of dancing letters and added a speedy stripe which became a sort of DH+IH style.
We also considered some of the more memorable David Hicks-isms: “Taste cannot be taught to those who do not sense it” or “To achieve an interesting design, courage is always needed”.
David Hicks certainly never lacked courage or confidence, he once declared, “My favorite decorator is myself.”
As a small child, I asked this dazzling man to write in my little autograph book. In his distinctive writing he left the words “good taste and design are by no means dependent upon money”. I had no idea what that meant.
Always the discerning tastemaker, aged eight years old David Hicks called the local tailor to his parents’ house and commissioned a dinner jacket. The only drawback being he had nowhere to wear the little dinner jacket.
He was truly an individual. He ran over the daffodils that grew outside his library window – they were the wrong shade of yellow. He would rearrange the furniture in the guest room of the surprised friends he was staying with. He designed my mother’s hair, his own funeral and his red heeled dancing shoes.
From houses to gardens, to restaurants, hotels, offices, jewels, and books, he was a master of good taste. This did not make him easy to live with. I know, because he was my father.
Possibly his most memorable Hicks-ism was this, ‘“I really don’t like people very much. They bore me. I like objects.”
He was, and remains to this day, a name to conjure with.
When the New York Times were writing his obituary, they rang my mother for a quote, “I already miss the slamming of doors,” she told them.