No matter where she happens to be, Daphné Guinness is inevitably the most striking person in the room. With a black-and-white chignon, couture-heavy wardrobe, and towering platform shoes (usually the ones designed by her close friend the late Alexander McQueen), Guinness is both a stylish and arresting presence in the worlds of fashion and culture. Recently the musician and composer completed her fourth album, Sleep, which was recorded at Abbey Road and British Grove Studios and features a full band (including 34 stringed instruments). Its first video, for the single “HipNeckSpine,” was directed by Nick Knight, and it includes 22 different looks from Guinness’s archive. On the occasion of the video’s release, she reveals her key components to the good life. —Ashley Baker
Airplane: The Concorde.
Airport: Dublin or Mustique.
Alibi: The truth.
App: Anything Apple.
Bag: My 30-year-old Birkin that I can hide in.
Bedtime: Meditation.
Birthday: My birthday is on such a bad day that I hardly celebrate. Maybe this year!
Boyfriend/girlfriend: Music.
Car: I don’t have one. I’d love one, though, and it would be a vintage Phantom Rolls-Royce.
Cocktail: Straight tequila.
Cocktail appetizer: Water.
Couple: Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller.
Diet: No onion, no garlic.
Disguise: I have many.
Enemy: Ignorance and unkind people.
Escape: I escape with music. I can escape into my head.
Excuse: The truth.
First Lady/First Man: Julius Caesar.
Flaw: Fatal.
Foil: I fence.
Friend: The universe. I’ve had many, but mainly Alexander McQueen.
Good-bye: I hate them. “To be continued … ”
Hideaway: My gym.
Hotel: Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc.
Indulgence: Forgiveness.
Insult: “You fill me with inertia.”
Jacket: I’m working on making a jacket which is made of gold sequins. I love my Charvet tailcoats, too.
Last Meal:
Fish fingers and mashed potatoes.
Match: The face-off between good and evil in heaven.
Movie: Sunset Boulevard.
Neighbor: Where do I start?
Nonfiction book: A dictionary of synonyms, which I always have with me.
Novel: The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.
Piece of advice: “If I thought I knew it all, I would give up everything. But for the record, have humor and be kind.”
President: Power is a funny thing, to be exercised with caution. I prefer éminences grises: Montaigne, Richelieu, Thomas Cromwell, Seneca, and Cicero.
Restaurant: Le Voltaire, Le Duc, and Café de Flore, all in Paris.
Ride: Any ride is great if the company is entertaining. I rode a horse through Kyrgyzstan for a month in 2001—everyone thought I’d lost my mind, but it was entertaining.
Saying: “I know nothing. Life is a learning experience.”
SHOES: The ones I design with my friend Nori Tatehana.
Singer: Maria Callas.
Streets: 71st Street in New York, or the Place du Palais-Bourbon, in Paris, where my grandmother lived.
Television series: Succession.
Theme song to your life: Either the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, conducted by Carlos Kleiber, or his Symphony No. 9, or else Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 or Mozart’s Requiem.
Toast: With Marmite.
Vacation: I avoid them, because that is when I start hatching new plans …
View: From the Spanish monastery where I grew up.
Wake-up time: 6:30.
WorkS of art: Gauguin’s Riders on the Beach, works by Picasso, Van Gogh, among many other pictures and objects.... I had the great pleasure of being surrounded by the best art in a sort of museum for 15 years of my life. How lucky and grateful I am.
WRITING IMPLEMENT: My calligraphy pen. I draw with pencils too.
Daphné’s Essentials
