muse of the month
Muse of the Month – Daphne Guinness
The Lady has always had the biggest girl-crush on Daphne Guinness since spotting her in one of Vogue’s many photographs of her in their celebrity-at-play sections… Far too-cool-for school, with her platinum hair & its shock of black, fingers full of enormous silver knuckle-dusters. So, when The Lady discovered that Nancy Mitford was her great-aunt and that she grew up in an artists’ colony with Dali and the Surrealists, the crush grew to epic proportions. The latest Daphne spotting was an appearance in a BBC4 documentary called the Secret World of Haute Couture (apologies for the dodgy copy); where, easy as it should have been to dislike her and her incredible wardrobe, she came across as a genuinely likeable lady. Read more here and here.
Daphne’s haute habit is revealed as being less about delusions of grandeur and more of being a kind of benefactress to a dying art of bespoke craftsmen. Added to the fact that a large chunk of her wardrobe was auctioned off a few years ago, with the proceeds going to Womankind, a charity helping women across the globe to improve their lives, The Lady feels inclined not to hate Daphne too much at all for her pretty clothes collection. In addition, we also share the interpretation of jewellery as armour (and armour-as-jewellery) and a similar fond appreciation for McQueen’s pet jeweller, Shaun Leane. That’s plenty enough for us to declare Daphne a good egg indeed.
Manifesto
Whether a burgeoning burlesque starlet or an innocent ingenue, ‘Lady, Behave!’ caters for every girl’s misadventures. ‘Lady, Behave!’ was borne from a desire to remind us of the time when women were ladies and men were gentlemen. Back then, hats were an essential part of a woman’s armoury in the battle of courtship. Whether traditionalist or exhibitionist, we say:
Bring Back the Hat!