LEGACY STYLE: INDIA HICKS

perched on a low window at America Farm —the author India Hicks

India Hicks, granddaughter to Edwina Mountbatten, daughter to Pamela Hicks, and now mother to daughter Domino (and four boys), is the epitome of what a woman of Legacy Style is in today's modern world. From my own book—Legacy Style refers to women that have inherited pieces they use in decorating their houses. To quote Nancy Lancaster as I do in the book---" I can't bear anything that looks decorated."
India Hicks would agree.

Her second solo book—India Hicks A Slice of England, centers on her house in the English countryside called America Farm. She and her husband David planned a house that appears at once both old and new.
The real beauty of the house can be found her approach to designing the house. She writes in the introduction:

"THE PAST IS ALWAYS THE PLACE TO START FOR INSPIRATION."

Her past, house-wise includes three family homes, Broadlands, Britwell, and the Grove. As the daughter of David & Pamela Hicks, she has inherited great taste, good bones and some grand furniture. All the attributes make the book, with its unique approach, a great read—stories from her childhood and her mother's who India dedicates the book to—

Beautifully photographed by the soulful photographer, Miguel Flores Vianna, India Hicks A Slice of England looks at the beauty of traditional design, inheriting it, and interpreting it for a modern family. There's little doubt the book will lead some young women—and men back to treasured family heirlooms—ones they may have rejected before opening A Slice of England.

HICKS CABINETS OF CURIOSITIES

At The Grove, where the Hicks family moved when India was 12, father David Hicks designed cabinets to hold the family "curiosities." The Grove is still home to Pamela Hicks and houses the Rex Whistler scenic panels painted for Edwina Mountbatten's boudoir. The panels were moved a number of times, first when the war started to Broadlands, then to Britwell, and now they hang in The Grove dining room.

INDIA'S AMERICA FARM IN ENGLAND

SOUTH OXFORDSHIRE

The Family outside front and center of America Farm

Beautiful floors, pristine walls, and spectacular chairs inherited from her mother exhibit the Hicks Style that India and her brother Ashley have inherited. The chairs are covered in a David Hick fabric. Beyond, a pair of grand Georgian consoles and mirrors, (once belonging to her parents) with one of the consoles holding colorful swimming caps belonging to India's mother Pamela.

Daughter Domino sleeps in a bed that was her grandmother's made up in her grandfather's floral print. Pamela Hicks's (grandmother to Domino) bridesmaids dress from the wedding of Queen Elizabeth to Philip, and at left, India's dress worn in Princess Diana's wedding.

While The Grove lies a comfortable distance from America Farm, it's easy to imagine an unbreakable link to the generations of women India Hicks' daughter Domino will come to revere. Whether she takes her cues from the traditional or the modern, it will be her own unique brand of the Hicks Style,

 A Slice of England is part love letter to India Hicks' mother and her grandmother, and most certainly to Domino. Part 1 of the book is aptly titled 'Legacy', and India Hicks is carrying that on— and passing it on.

The Grove

the book is available here, and at Rizzoli here.