Fashion maverick and brewery heiress Daphne Guinness released a make-up collection for Mac in December last year, and I stopped by the Mac store after work yesterday to check it out. The color palette is very her - shades of purple and auburn as well as light pastel colors - but still very wearable and "normal" compared to her eccentric fashion escapades. Although I would never dream of dressing like her (it's not very practical, and I would never have the guts to do it anyway), she's a great inspiration.
Daphne Guinness is a fashion icon, designer and artist of Irish, English and French descent. The daughter of Jonathan Guinness, the third Baron Moyne and heir of the Guinness family, Daphne spent her childhood moving between Ireland, Paris, her family's country estate in Warwickshire, their house in London and their holiday home in Cadaqués, Spain, where Salvador Dalí was one of their nearest neighbours. In her teens, she often visited her older sister Catherine, who was Andy Warhol's personal assistant in New York during the 1980s. She wanted to become an opera singer, and apparently she had talent, too, but all that changed when she met Greek shipping heir Spyros Niarchos on a skiing vacation when she was 17. At 19 she was married, and at 20 she gave birth to their eldest son, Nicholas. Daughters Alexis and Ines soon followed. For over a decade she lived a very sheltered life in Switzerland and lost contact with her old world.
Up until this point, Guinness had never made any big waves in the fashion world. Sure, she was well-dressed, but never over the top. However, something changed when she divorced Niarchos in 1999. When referring to this period in her life, she has often described herself as a bird released from a gilded, but none the less constricting cage. Her outfits became more and more daring and peculiar. The blonde started dying parts of her hair black, and her characteristic Cruella de Vil hairdo was born. She moved back to London and found new, like-minded friends in designer Alexander McQueen and stylist Isabella Blow, both of whom would meet with a tragic end later in life. Blow committed suicide in 2007, while McQueen ended his life three years later. Guinness ended up buying Blow's entire wardrobe from her estate in order to keep the very personal collection together. Her plan is to one day open a museum in honor of her late friend. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York displayed the Alexander McQueen exhibition "Savage Beauty", she lent them several pieces from her own, personal collection. These are couture pieces that she not only has collected, but actually wears on a regular basis. She's not like the rest of the socialite circus, who will not be caught dead wearing the same thing twice. She claims she's quite shy, and refers to clothes as her "armor" - her way of keeping people at a distance (much in the same way Isabella Blow used to wear enormous hats to keep people at arm's length). With time, she has turned into something more than an eccentric socialite with an impressive wardrobe. She's a living piece of art. Her own boyfriend, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, has said of her: "She's no longer a person, she's a concept."
Wearing an outfit from Alexander McQueen's fantastic Atlantis collection - in my opinion, his best collection ever. Notice the crazy "Armadillo" shoes made famous by Lady Gaga.
The heiress wearing a pair of quirky, heel-less shoes. They don't look particularly comfortable. But, as Guinness puts it herself, "uncomfortable is the name of the game".
Guinness' obsession with armor led her to co-design this unique, armored glove with jewelry designer Shaun Leane. It's made of white gold and more than 5000 diamonds, and it's handmade to fit her arm perfectly. It took four years and many fittings to make.
Guinness wearing Alexander McQueen's "swan dress".
In Vogue Italia.
Guinness arriving at the Alexander McQueen memorial service wearing Alexander McQueen (of course) and a Philip Treacy hat.
Guinness and supermodel friends (all wearing Alexander McQueen, apart from Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman) at Fashion for Relief in 2010.
Wearing an Alexander McQueen kimono dress.
Looking superhuman in a photo spread for The London Sunday Times.
Prabal Gurung spring 2012
