portal to fashion

In a nutshell Daphne Guinness is an artist, haute couture collector, and an exotic, eccentric beauty. Recently she is also an producer, writer, journalist, and actress.

EARLY LIFE

At 44 years of age, this heiress of the Guinness (yes the beer) family has kept her physique and youth immaculate. She is of Irish, English, and French descent, daughter of Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne and his second wife, Suzanne Lisney. She spent her childhood moving back and forth from Ireland, Paris, Warwickshire (where her family's country estate is), London (where one family house is) and Cadeques, Spain (where another family house is). Salvador Dali was a neighbour of theirs in Spain. Man Ray, Dieter Roth, Riachard Hamilton, and David Hockey also owned houses in the town.
As a child a friend (a boy) held a knife up to her neck telling her he was going to kill all women starting wit her. He let her go, but the next day killed his mother. After being released from prison he killed his grandmothers. Guinness did not know about the murders until she was an adult though.

She went to boarding school starting at age 11, then married at 19 so she never got to know her mother very well. Her mother served time for being allied with Hitler!

Guinness was closer to her grandmother Diana Mitford. Her grandmothers second husband was a leader of the British Union of Fascist. Politics were not discussed in the Guinness and Mitford homes so she was unaware that when away at boarding school and her step grandfathers name came on the radio, her yelling "I know him" would not help her socially.

FAMILY

   Guiness married Spyros Niarchos, son of the Greek shipping billionaire Stavros Niarchos and grandson of another Greek shipping billionaire Stavros G. Livanos. In 1985 at the young age of 17 she met her soon to be husband while skiing in Switzerland. Two years later they wed.  They had three children together, Nicolas Stavros Niarchos, or Nick Niarchos (b. 1989), Alexis Spyros Niarchos (b. 1991), and Ines Niarchos (b. 1995). Guiness and Niarchos divorced in 1999, and she reportedly won £20 million in the settlement.
   Her children are all doing their own things now. Her eldest just graduated from Yale majoring in English Literature. Guinness has spoken about how she used to dress as a student to go to lectures wit him. Alex is in Tibet exploring, while Ines is doing her GCSEs. Ines is not keen on her mother wearing black all the time as it looks as though she is attending a funeral. Guinness loves that her children are all unique and is glad they are not replicas of herself.
     Nowadays it is an open secret that is very close to the married French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy. " In the 2011 February issue of the US Harper's Bazaar, her friend, the fashion writer Derek Blasberg, quoted her description of him: "He is quite obviously the love of my life".^"

COUTURE COLLECTOR

Collecting haute couture, and regular fashion has been a hobby for Guiness for a number of years. In 2010 she bought late Isabella Blow's entire wardrobe because she wanted it to be preserved and complete. Blow (19 November 1958 – 7 May 2007) has been credited with discovering Alexander Mcqueen and was an English magazine editor, the muse of hat designer Philip Treacy. She is also credited with discovering the models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl. It is still undecided what will happen to the collection but Guinness wants it to be a resource for historians and students.

Blow and Guinness

After McQueens passing Guinness performed in the Barney's window display case in New York as part of the commemoration for McQueen. Her perfomance included many dresses from her own personal collection. The last dress she wore was by Sarah Burton for the McQueen house. She left Barney's in the dress and left in a vintage car for the Met Gala. A video including part of her performance has been created by Nowness. Unfortunately both her close friends Blow and McQueen committed suicide.

Guinness in the Sarah Burton for McQueen Dress at the Met Gala

At the McQueen Funeral

ARMOUR

   Although Daphne Guinness seems eccentric is she actually very shy and introverted. She uses clothing and armour as a sort of shield. "When you see a suit of armor and then a portrait of the person who wore it, you'll see that the person was sort of tiny and a little feeble, so they put on this great big suit of armor to look a little more frightening."
   This fascination with armour led to her approaching her great friend Shaun Leane (the jewelry designer for McQueen) in 2006 to create a gold and diamond arm glove. The glove is titled 'Contra Mundum' or 'Against The World'. It is handcrafted, intricately made wearable art piece that took five years to create and develop. It is "perhaps one of the most technically advanced pieces in the world of artisan jewels." It originally started as a silver glove but ended up being made in 18-k white gold as the silver was too soft. There are 5, 000 pave white diamonds on the glove.
   Guinness stated that the idea of the glove came about when 'We were (Leane and herself) at one of those enormous events where we were huddled in a corner going, "What are we doing here? Wouldn't it be great to have some armour?" Now that is is complete it will be exhibited, and then put up for sale for $1.76 million, as it is more a piece of art then a piece of jewelry. Originally McQueen was to create a dress to go with the glove.

Guinness presented the glove in an unusual display at Jay Jopling's Georgian townhouse. Guinness modelled the glove laying in a McQueen bodysuit, and an antique veil covering her entire body.

Leane stated "And it means so much to us personally because we started it when Isabella [Blow] was still alive. And then Lee [Alexander McQueen] was so inspired by it, he even wanted to make a dress for it.”

ART ADVENTURE

Guinness is a Renaissane woman who is currently writing a novel, as well as painting. She also just completed three films. A friend of Guinness' and a photographer Joe Lally shot two fo them, while she produced, acted, and did hair and makeup for. The third film about soul swapping. Previously has has directed her own short films, and Cashback. Cashback is a film produced for photographer Sean Ellis, who was an Oscar nominee in 2004.

One of the films by Joe Lally, "The Murder of Jean Seberg is a trippy art-house feature charting the high (and low) life of the American-born actress who became the darling of French New Wave Cinema. Hailed by François Truffaut as “the best actress in Europe,” the actress’ turbulent personal legacy is as famous as her films."

Daphne Guinness in the film "The Murder of Jean Seberg"

The full movie "The Murder of Jean Seberg"

Guinness in a Vogue spread.

A simple armour glove.

More armour jewelry

Facial armour, with her signature skunk-esque hair

In McQueen

It is no wonder that she was has been credited in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1994, as her eye for art developed in the 1980's while she lived with her sister Catherine Guinness in New York. Catherine was known friends of Andy Warhol. Guiness and Comme des Garcons released a fragrance in her name in 2009. She has also designed a range of clothing with Dover Stret Market.

Guinness has had a NARS makeup line made in her name in Fall 2010. MAC just came out with their makeup campaign in her name in December 2011 including 24 pieces.

The Nars Fall 2010 Campaign shot of Daphne Guinness

The MAC 2011 Campaign shot of Daphne Guinness

FUN FACTS

- Guinness is often seen in sky high heels including the Armadillo Heel by McQueen, and heels with... no heel...
- She has a love for butterflies, snakes, and fish. Her house is covered in framed butterflies, and there is a "massive circular kaleidoscope of butterflies by Damien Hirst" on one of her walls

- She collects books, and original art work. This includes photographs by Japanese artist Arak, a photograph by David LaChapelle, and a large-scale work by Gregory Crewdson

Daphne's livingroom

- Her hallway includes mirrored walls and a mirrored ceiling, while the carpet is a particular red. A red hue that she had custom mixed for her nail polish. Which is the only colour nail polish she wears.
- Her hair is currently black and while, sunk-esque, but she says that it has just come to be that way, it has been pink, purple, and an array of colours in the past
- She was in Kid Cudi's Pursuit of Happiness music video
- There is a tumblr devoted to Daphne Guinness
- Her Couture wardrobe consists of2, 500 garments, 450 pairs of shoes, 70 hats, and 200 hand bags!!!!
- In September over 100 of her Couture Garments were on display at FIT
- In 2010 Daphne modeled in Naomi Cambell's Fashion for Relief Runway show to raise funds for mothers in Haiti
- In May 2008 Guinness has auctioned off many of her Couture garments to raise money for Womankind, a charity to raise money for help raise the standards of the lives of women in developing countires
- Many have asked Guinness about Lady Gaga's sense of style and if she feels she is being copied. Guinness believes that there is only so much in the world and that we can all do as we please.
- "She wears white ballet slippers on the StairMaster at the gym. And, she wears diamonds all the time - even to the beach!"

Sorry I haven't had time to edit this, hopefull soon!
And a thankyou to Jayson for posting videos and getting me hooked on this intriguing subject.

I still think the "Pre-Fall" trend in the fashion industry is a little excessive especially since the collections aren't that insane, special, or different but HEY I love clothing so I'm going to love some of the pieces. Most of the collections I felt were wipped together in a week so they were drapey, simple, and boring. They just weren't worth my time.

Favourites:

Armani

Reem Acra

Another Reem Acra

This one is bound to end up on a star on a red carpet.

Missoni

I've never been a big stripes person so inevitable I don't like all that many Missoni pieces. This jacket on the other hand I adore because the stripes are muted and it is in neutral tones.

Herve Leger by Max Azria

I love the little slits. They are perfectly placed.

Another Herve Leger

I LOVE the harnesses in this collection. They include no metal wear that I can see in photos which makes them less bondagey and more high fashion.

And ofcourse Dsquared!

I love these Canadian men. They create high fashion looks that when disassembled the pieces can be worn with jeans, sneakers, a tank top. The everyday girl can wear their clothing. I also love that you don't have to be a twig to wear their garments (perhaps excluding the dress shown above).

Burberry Prorsum

This SEXY 1940s inspired collection is FABULOUS. I want every piece, including the mens garments to dress my boyfriend in. The only pieces I could do without and that confuse me are the cardigans with puppy cartoons on them, but hey the rest of the collection is so fabulous that I don't care that much.

Another Burberry

Not exactly my Favourites:

BCBG

Normally I love a lot of BCBG by Max Azria's looks but this season they took the aztec thing far too far. First off the aztec inspiration was overdone last season and the one before that, and a few years ago we had to go through the Mexican themes. I'm bored.

Secondly why on EARTH would I want to wear an Aztec MooMoo when their calendar is the one that supposedly says I'm going to die in a year.

Calvin Klein

I am shocked at CK's collection! Drab colours, drab cuts, draby everything. Were not in the middle of WWIII for goodness sake. What I am most shocked about is the fit of each and every garment. You can have military inspired garments that are still sexy or fitted but these garments all have something off about them. The photo I chose to include is of my favourite of the garments, and it still has miss shapen shoulders and sleeves. A lot of the other garments make the teeny weeny models look a lot larger than they are.