Who the hell does Daphne Guinness think she is?

The Honourable Daphne Guinness appears in many guises: heiress and socialite; film producer; designer and perfumer; model; philanthropist; and fashion icon with an enviable collection of couture. Her blonde and black skunk-like hair is to be seen at every party, premier and couture show that counts. But what does this madcap, glamorous, British-eccentric actually do?

‘Ideas’ is her answer: ‘collaborating with people’ and ‘being the midwife to their brilliance’. But in order to do ‘collaborations’ and ‘ideas’ it must help to be as well connected as she is. Guinness counts photographers David LaChapelle and Steven Klein as friends. She was close to Isabella Blow and Alexander McQueen, and used to move in the same circle as Andy Warhol. She was brought up holidaying every summer at a Catalan artist colony, where the likes of Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Richard Hamilton were regular guests. This bohemian world of creativity, Dali’s lobster pool, or Studio 54, has coloured her fashion choices and given her a unique (if slightly experimental) persona.
Her most successful collaborations have included a silver glove designed with Shaun Leane (fulfilling her obsession with armour). A range of 5 white shirts with Dover Street Market and a perfume, ‘Daphne’, in collaboration with Comme des Garçons (the company's president, Adrian Joffe, too is an old friend). To have, what she modestly calls ‘a bit’ of money (her divorce settlement from Spyros Niarchos was reported, although never confirmed, to be in the region of £20 million), must only help further.
But it would be unfair to say all she did was connections and money. Her more recent projects have seen her move from the ‘midwife’ to the director. The short film she produced in 2006, ‘Cashback’, with the fashion photographer Sean Ellis, received an Academy Award nomination. ‘Mnemosyne’ a short film to accompany her perfume beautifully explored the visuals of scent. ‘The Phenomenology of Body’, 2008 project for which she was director and producer, was a well received film exploring changing aesthetics and the politics of fashion. On a revolving turn-table a Grecian goddess, Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette, a Fifties housewife, a suffragette and the Burka conveyed the ever-shifting use of fashion in the constriction and liberation of women.
The vast collection of couture she amassed during her marriage to Niarchos is now serving to help her help others. In 2008 she auctioned 1,000 of her designer pieces, raising a little over £100,000 for Womankind, a charity that deals with the political and domestic abuse of women worldwide. She was a model in Naomi Campbell's Fashion For Relief show, raising funds for mothers in Haiti in 2010. She will exhibit 80 to 100 pieces, including Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Azzedine Alaia and Comme des Garçons at F.I.T.'s museum in September 2011. Guinness likes to share her success.

With a penchant for neck-ruffles, hats and veils Daphne Guinness is a woman of many talents. Her eclectic and far reaching interests, literature, classical music and art, have come together to create a wholly unique fashion icon and patron.