Daphne Guinness on Hanging out at Andy Warhol’s Factory, Curating an Individual Image and Using Her Chiropracter’s Bone Cracking as a Drum Beat
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Fashion Icon. Muse. Tastemaker. Rock star. There will never be enough words to truly describe the effect that Daphne Guinness has had on the collective fashion consciousness, but my god it's fun to try. Daphne has done it all, runways, magazines, albums, television, parties, music videos, galleries, there is not a corner of pop culture that has not been touched by her elegant gloved hands. Dressed in couture, somewhere between disco vampire, glam rock Garbo, avant garde bird of prey, sartorial rebel with a hint of Cruella De Vil, but sweetie, with lovely shoes, Daphne has become an enduring style legend, unafraid to reference or not reference, with a legendary look that transcends time (and space). We had the pleasure to interview the Supreme herself and ask her all about her exciting new album, her extensive couture archive and her youth hanging out with Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. Strap in divas, shit’s getting gaggy.
Daphne Guinness is a self confessed nomad, having moved between houses, countries and continents fifteen times in the last twelve years, but is now hoping to stay in London for the foreseeable future. “My whole life dissolves every three months, but it’s getting better now,” She explains. “This is the first year I’ve actually lived anywhere in a very long time.” Finally, all her creature comforts and more importantly, clothing, is in the city with her. For a while Daphne had to keep her wardrobe locked away in an archive with only a folder full of photographs to keep close by, but now her access is unlimited and she used them to style herself for her newest music video for the hottest single Hip Neck Spine, a veritable fashion feast shot by the SHOWstudio genius Nick Knight.
In the devilishly stylish video, Daphne stands in the centre of a set straight out of a 1930s Horst P Horst fashion photograph, with the lighting to match. As a huge mirrorball spins over head, Daphne croons at the camera, and absolute vision in sequins, a glittering goddess, a disco Marlene Dietrich. “I love the 1930s, Gene Tierney and Sunset Blvd.” Daphne enthuses to me. “We need to bring back Old Hollywood Glamour.”
It’s not only beads, feathers and beauty that Daphne offers us in this song, but her bones as well - “The percussion is actually recordings of my hip, neck and spine being cracked at chiropractor session.” After having recorded the literal clicking of her bones on a phone, and remixing them into a drum machine, how does it feel to listen to the song now? “It’s actually a relief, almost like a placebo. I feel as if I’ve just had my neck cracked.”
“Clothes are a conversation, and it's much more fun being in that conversation when you are dressing up, or styling someone else, or being on set. It becomes collaborative.”
This is far from Daphne’s first foray into being a video vixen, her iconic 2014 music video Evening In Space was a technicolor David LaChappelle masterpiece. “My god, that became a mini-legend in LA.” Daphne laughs, “It went on for three days and three nights, I had only half an hour of sleep on the second day. As David said, it was the most full on thing anyone’s ever done in their whole life.” I remember when the video came out, every art school hopeful and dedicated fashion follower poured over every frame, posting it on Tumblr, it was everywhere.
Daphne continues, “It was the best thing ever, we had so much fun. There should be a film about the making of it from all the different points of view, everybody had a really good time.” Pink phalluses and blue aliens, the video is like a fever dream pulling from everywhere, Pink Narcissus, Velvet Goldmine, even Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, not a single second of wasted imagery. “That was one of those occasions where it was all my pieces in a room, plus extra, plus plus plus, always plus. Funnily enough, I’ve been looking at all the rushes and B roll, there’s so much that didn’t make it into the video.”
One can only imagine. “David is like my brother, once we are together it all kicks off. It was such a classic. I will be doing something with David again quite soon.” My poor gay heart can’t take the anticipation.
Our conversation turns to styling, and how to curate such an individual wardrobe. “Clothes are a conversation, and it's much more fun being in that conversation when you are dressing up, or styling someone else, or being on set. It becomes collaborative.” Daphne smiles, then delves into her deep regard for referencing through fashion: “I started off with films, and literature, but also an imagination. It’s everything that I’ve ever experienced, or that I’ve ever read, or watched, and also the people I’ve worked with too. It becomes something new.”
I think this is something that a lot of artists can relate to, the sum of all of your parts influence the work, not just a specific focus, and Daphne’s idiosyncratic visual approach is definitely an example of this. She is almost completely timeless, part glam rock Greta Garbo, part alien goddess, her vision transcends period.
In 2013, Daphne mounted the exhibition Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore, where she exhibited the astonishing collection of the late iconic fashion editor at Somerset House in London. After Blow’s early death, Daphne bought the entirety of her legendary wardrobe in order to care for it. The curation of clothes is akin to the curation of memory, we all know how many memories can be attached to dresses that we’ve worn and loved.
Blow and her designer milieu were not the only artists that Daphne counted amongst her personal friends; she grew up in the company of the famous master of surrealism Salvador Dali. “My mother was great friends with him, and we lived in Cadaques where he also had a house. I saw him quite a lot when I was growing up, he was very, very present in my childhood.”
One must consider that this youthful proximity to the font of surrealism must have had a hand in crafting Daphne’s singular vision when it comes to fashion as an adult. Her older sister Catherine worked as a personal assistant to Andy Warhol, whom Daphne also met when she moved to New York. “That was normality to me, living in a village surrounded by artists. Andy, Fred Hughes [Warhol’s business manager] and Bob Colacello [editor of Interview magazine] were my first friends in New York.” And how was it, being influenced by these two great artists at such a young age? “It’s quite a good duo actually, I think that might be why I am the way that I am, coming out of those two scenes.”
Daphne Guinness is a singularity, one of the last great eccentric aesthetes, and we are so lucky to be alive at the same time as her distinct body of visual work. In an era when everyone can curate and tailor an online visual identity, having wider reference points is truly a gift. Just by talking to Daphne you can sense the energy of the artistic communities she grew up and worked in, bridging the gaps between the then and the now whilst being ceaselessly contemporary.
I finished up our interview with a question I ask everyone; what is your favourite sad song? “I go straight back to classical music and moon around in D Minor, Purcell’s Cold Song, from King Arthur.” Maybe one day there will be time to write an opera about the Daphne Guinness story, an audio visual feast of black and white couture and soaring vocals? “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, but this country is slashing everything from the arts. It has to change. I really think music is the answer to that.”
Today marks the release of the Hercules and Love Affair’s remix of Daphne’s Hip Neck Spine, this Italo-disco infused version celebrates the hypnotic vocals of the original track, but adds that little je ne sais quoi necessary to make a song a club anthem. The dance floor has long been the birthplace of revolutions, so let's hope we can start one now.
Words: Misha MN
Find the Hip Neck Spine Hercules & Love Affair remixes here.
