WIWN - What I'm Wearing Now with Daphne Guinness - New York Times
Portrait of socialite and fashionista Daphne Guinness for the NY Times by photographer Eric Hason.
She is an heiress, socialite, muse and mother and has been a fashion stylist, film producer, designer and perfumer: Daphne Guinness is known for her love of couture and flamboyant personal style.
• She was born in 1967, the daughter of brewery heir Jonathan Guinness and renowned French beauty Suzanne Lisney. • Her great-aunt was Nancy Mitford and her grandmother was Diana Mitford. • She was brought up in England and Ireland, holidaying in Spain every summer - where she used to swim in Salvador Dali's lobster-filled pool. • She lived in New York in the early Eighties, when her sister - Catherine Guinness - worked for Andy Warhol as his PA. • Her mother passed away in 2007 from lung cancer and her father - to whom she is close - now lives in Gloucestershire. • She married Spyros Niarchos - son of the Greek shipping magnate, Stavros - in 1987. "I married at 19," she said in The Daily Telegraph. "That's young, isn't it? It was madness but that's love for you. I was headstrong and very much in love and I couldn't see any reason not to marry." • She is rumoured to have received a £20 million settlement from her divorce. "Gosh, being married, that was my 'caged bird' period," she says in The Times. • She met her friend the late Isabella Blow at the 90th birthday party for her cousin, Maureen. The two used to help each other on fashion shoots. "I loved her," she said in The Daily Telegraph. "'I miss her every day. I cannot believe she is not here. She was so generous and so very funny." • She has three children with Spyros - Nicolas, 20, Alexis, 19, and Ines, 15. • She created her own clothing line, called Daphne, in collaboration with Dover Street Market in 2007. • In May 2008, she auctioned off ten rails of her clothing - including boxes and boxes of accessories - to raise money for Womankind, a charity set up to improve the standards of life of women in developing countries. • She collaborated on her own perfume, Daphne, with Comme des Garcons in 2009. "I love the smell of churches and of clay and moss. I like earthy smells. I love amber and tuberose," she told The Daily Telegraph. • She became the face of Akris in 2009. • She is muse to make-up supremo François Nars and appears in his campaigns. In November 2009, she hosted a party in New York to celebrate Nars' make-up and photography book, 15 x 15. • She reads books obsessively, loves classical music and once toyed with the idea of becoming an opera singer. • In 2010, she sat on the judging committee of the Dorchester Fashion Prize. • In July 2010, she stopped the sale of Isabella Blow's wardrobe at auction at Christie's because, she said in the Financial Times, she wanted to prevent "carnage, as souvenir seekers plundered the incredible body of work Issie had created over her life".