Fashion Star: Daphne Guinness

"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.