Her father bequeathed a £96 million fortune, but has Bella Freud mislaid her own Midas touch, for the moment at least?
I ask because the acclaimed fashion designer — one of 14 children Lucian Freud acknowledged as his own — is bidding farewell to what has been described as her ‘luxury fragrance brand’, Bella Freud Parfum.
Despite selling scented candles at £50 a piece and, in a familial nod to her great-grandfather, Sigmund Freud, a creation called ‘Psychoanalysis Eau de Parfum’ — £165 for 100ml — the company is now in liquidation.
It’s a rare setback for Bella who has enjoyed success in interior design, film-making and publishing, as well making clothes which enjoy a ‘cult following’ among the likes of Sienna Miller, Olivia Wilde and Kate Moss, — the last of whom posed, naked and pregnant, for Bella’s father, with the resultant portrait selling for £3.9 million.
Bella declines to comment on the fate of her eponymous fragrance business, but observers note that its parent company, Bella Freud Ltd, has itself battled through a challenging year which has seen its assets dwindle from £900,000 to just over £100,000.
Bella has enjoyed success in interior design, film-making and publishing, as well making clothes which enjoy a ‘cult following’ among the likes of Sienna Miller , Olivia Wilde and Kate Moss (Bella and Moss pictured at the first anniversary of Cosmoss)
Bella declines to comment on the fate of her eponymous fragrance business, but its parent company, Bella Freud Ltd, has battled through a challenging year with assets dwindling from £900,000 to just over £100,000
Among the perfumes is a nod to her famous grandfather Sigmund Freud – ‘Psychoanalysis Eau de Parfum’ — £165 for 100ml
Its current summer sale — on an array of merchandise from pinstripe trousers and hoodies to beanie hats and cushion covers — has offered discounts of as much as 70 per cent.
One thing is certain: little, if anything, will disconcert Bella, 63, who was born in the same year as two of her half-sisters, Isobel — one of Freud’s four children by Suzy Boyt – and Lucy, one of four more he fathered by Katherine McAdam.
As a child, she and her younger sister, Esther, accompanied their mother, Bernardine Coverley, to Morocco where they lived in a rundown Marrakesh hotel.
The experience inspired Esther to write her first novel, Hideous Kinky, later made into a film starring Kate Winslet.
Separated from her husband, White Mischief author James Fox, Bella has reflected: ‘I used to wonder what is going to happen…now I think, “How am I going to make this happen?”‘
Stand by for the next Freud chapter.
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