Photo by René Habermacher
"People say to me, 'What do you do?' and I always say, 'I have absolutely no idea,'" says Daphne Guinness, who, as an Irish fashion iconoclast and famed couture collector, needs no introduction. "I love literature and history and physics. But what do I do? I just can't help creating stuff. I imagine it and then it happens." If Ms. Guinness (descendant of the notorious Mitford sisters, heiress to the stout fortune and former wife of shipping magnate Spyros Niarchos) should ever require a resumé, listed would be such peculiar métiers as (in no particular order): accidental muse to the late Alexander McQueen, as well as Tom Ford and Gareth Pugh; filmmaker (her 2004 short Cashback was nominated for an Oscar and she is currently producing her first feature); performance artist (dressing for the Met Ball in Barneys' flagship store windows and staging her own funeral for her collaboration on a gem-encrusted glove with jeweller Shaun Leane); plus Comme des Garçons perfumer and occasional newspaper contributor. Also, she's about to release a cosmetics line with M.A.C that replicates her dramatic maquillage. For someone often labelled a socialite, she sure has a full workload and is infinitely more compelling than the standard deep-pocketed, deep-tanned clothes horse.
Photo Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
In September, Guinness added another unusual honour to her accomplishments. Under the eye of director and chief curator Valerie Steele, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (MFIT) in New York unveiled an exhibit devoted to Guinness's closet, also known as the world's most breathtaking private fashion collection. For the first time, fans will be able to peer into her haunting wardrobe, filled with trademark surrealist footwear, macabre bijoux and masterful frocks. "What's the point of having it all sitting up in my cupboard when it could actually be out inspiring people?" she asks of her The Coveteur-on-acid assemblage of cataphract-like pieces from the likes of Ford, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and, of course, a liberal helping of McQueen. "It didn't take me long to put [the show] together; maybe two hours. It was instant," she says. "I looked at it all and realized, Oh my God, it's just a lot of black and white." Monochromatic though it may seem, Guinness's haul is far from basic. More than 100 pieces-many of them one-of-a-kind-plus film, video and high-concept photos, make up this ode to her inimitable style.
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Photo by Kevin Davies
One wonders if this self-professed "terribly shy" person with a quivering lilt and heaps of self-doubt is hesitant to expose her inner world? Turns out, the lady relishes in a terrifying challenge. "Basically, I'm putting myself in a position that I feel utmost uncomfortable. I wish I could make a body double, but I can't," says Guinness. "But you have to say yes because it's a great idea. Then you get to a point where you realize, Oh my goodness, this is laying myself quite bare," she says, laughing nervously. "I'm hoping that it will be great for the students. I just wish I didn't have to look at myself looking more and more dreadful."
Photo Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
These apparent insecurities suggest that her extreme dressing provides protection from the outside world. Indeed, looking back on old images of Guinness-before she divorced in 1999 and emerged a fashionable rare bird-her style choices were far less outré. She wore regular things such as simple pantsuits and halter-neck dresses. Her hair wasn't as platinum blond, nor slashed with a noir streak. Presently, her self-creation is more haute armour, but, she claims, uncontrived. "I get dressed very quickly, probably in five minutes, so I pick the pieces that I really love based on how I feel that day. Some people think [my outfits] are normal and others think they're strange. Somehow my style is very consistent."
I wonder what her three children think of their mother's singular look, which would certainly elicit stares during the morning drop-off. "What I make sure of, especially with my daughter [Ines], is that they understand that this is my style, and I would never force it down anybody's throat." Are there no budding fashion oddities set to follow in her heel-less footsteps? "My second-oldest boy [Alexis] is very artistic and much like me. Funny enough, I don't think they seem to mind my style at all. They're used to me wandering around in my McQueen kimono."
Photo by Anthea Simms
As one of the world's most recognizable fashion eccentrics, Guinness now finds herself a tabloid target. Does the constant scrutiny ever make this London- and New York-based magpie want to go incognito in, say, denim and down-to-earth shoes? Besides black leggings and stiff white bespoke shirts worn solely for sneaking into her eldest son's lectures at Yale ("It was so cool of the teachers to allow me to do that"), she is simply not interested in the mundane. "What would happen if I stayed the same and everyone else became sort of…more like this?" she counters. "If it were the '80s, I wouldn't stick out at all. There were punks and mods and everyone had their look. Then AIDS came along and wiped out many of the creative people."
More recently, she also suffered the loss of dear friend Alexander "Lee" McQueen. It would appear that her archive of his pieces (plus the wardrobe of another mate, eccentric and McQueen muse Isabella Blow, which she swooped in and purchased from Christie's to avoid it being divided) has made her something of a caretaker of the designer's legacy. "Oh, I don't feel that way," she says. "He was the one that came up to me. He would take my clothes apart and have a look at how they were made." But their friendship was more than just fashion talk, extending to her other great love, the arts. "I only feel like I speak the same language when I'm around [artists]. I don't call myself an artist, although my friends would tell me 'Just own it!' I wouldn't dare describe myself that way because people would just say I'm a socialite." There is that stigmatic word again, which she practically spits out with distaste.
Photo Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
No ivory tower aristocrat, @TheRealDaphne has endeared herself to more than 24,000 followers on Twitter. As fashion's most distraught tweeter, she openly shares lovelorn bons mots laced with melancholic Twitpic portraits. And unlike most icons of her status, she regularly converses with loyal subjects. "I don't like to just have virtual relationships. My first six or seven followers, I went and met them for coffee. Otherwise, it just feels like you're not a real person." As untouchably chic and inspired as she may seem, peel away the layers of fine silk, leather and tweed and one finds a kindred, open spirit. "I hope I have made sense," she says as we say our goodbyes. "I'm just trying to remain as truthful as I can. There's really nothing to hide; that's just who I am." And like her custom couture ensembles, there is only one Daphne.
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