PERSON OF INTEREST

Deciphering Daphne Guinness

What does the famed socialite really do?

Everyone knows Daphne Guinness by her trademark blond-and-black hair, but who really knows what she does? In a profile in this Sunday’s Telegraph, Lucy Cavendish writes that Guinness is a socialite with an impressive wardrobe and even more impressive Rolodex, and is rumored to be dating French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who is still married to the French actress Arielle Dombasle. She’s a descendent of the Guinness dynasty, and was married to the shipping heir Spyros Niarchos before she split from him in 1999. For the duration of their marriage, they jetted around the world—and Guinness says she didn’t see friends or family at all for 15 years. “Suddenly I had to start all over again and it was very frightening,” she said of her divorce. “It was like coming out of a time capsule.” Her remedy, she has found, is fashion, which she sees as “an extension of self.” She’s recently designed a new scent, “Daphne,” with Comme des Garçons. According to her, Lévy says: ‘You are no longer a person, you have become a concept.’"