BOAT LIFE
Audrey Hepburn was as glamorous as
her many 0n-screen characters. Here,
the 25-year-old actress is captured in
August 1954 on a lake in Bürgenstock,
Switzerland, where she was with her
fiancé, the director and actor Mel Ferrer.
The couple had been introduced
at a London party the previous December
by Hepburn’s Roman Holiday co-star
Gregory Peck. The film had catapulted
her to fame and earned her the Best
Actress Oscar. Hepburn later told an
interviewer of that first meeting with
Ferrer: “I liked him... but that was all.
He’d seen me in Gigi and we talked about
doing a play together, the way actors and
actresses do.”
Unsurprisingly, Ferrer duly sent
a script of the French play Ondine and
the rehearsals began in New York in
January 1954. Ferrer quickly proposed
and the actress signalled her acceptance
by giving him a platinum watch that
was inscribed with the words of the
popular Noël Coward song Mad About
the Boy. They married in Switzerland that
September and honeymooned at Villa
Rolli, 20 minutes south of Rome.
The couple had a son, Sean, in January
- Hepburn soon returned to New York
to play society call girl Holly Golightly in
the film adaptation of Truman Capote’s
novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The role,
for which she was Oscar-nominated,
cemented her place as a Hollywood great
and a style icon. The legacy of sleeveless
dresses, oversized sunglasses and the
classic Tiffany strands of pearls lives on
and was rather more enduring than the
marriage, which ended in 1968.
The alchemist’s tale
Jeweller and silversmith Theo Fennell takes great pride in giving
traditional skills a contemporary edge. He talks colour, creativity
and microscopic centurions with Ticky Hedley-DentThe story behind the picture
T
heo Fennell is almost as dazzling as
the exotic and flamboyant jewellery
twinkling in the glass cabinets of
his Chelsea store. Sporting a natty bright
V-neck, the floppy-haired jeweller is positively
fizzing with good humour and English charm.
Coloured decanters with solid silver skull
stoppers rest on counters filled with diamond
necklaces, ruby-encrusted skull rings, huge
emerald drop earrings and gold cuffs. A
massive chessboard with white and yellow gold
birds of prey stands majestically at one end
of the showroom. It’s no wonder this larger-
than-life character’s playful designs have a
loyal following of clients including Elton John,
Ronnie Wood and the Delevingne sisters.
At least half of his business
is bespoke and, of course, much
of his irreverent yet classical
silverware ends up on board his
patrons’ yachts. “We’ve just made“We’ve just made
a four-foot-long
silver model of
a motor yacht that
comes apart...”a four-foot-long silver model of a motor yacht
that comes apart so you could see each cabin,”
he says. The world of superyachts is a familiar
one and he’s spent many a holiday as a guest
cruising the South of France, Caribbean and
Corsica. “At the moment we’re creating ship
decanters that don’t roll. The days of yachts
rolling are largely gone but they’re nice things
to have and they’ve been made especially.”
Marine themes pervade his work, from
jellyfish pendants to large, dazzling ocean-
coloured stones such as Brazilian paraibas and
aquamarines. Then there are cufflinks galore
for the male superyacht owner, featuring
everything from periscopes to J Class yachts,
Chinese junks, crabs and sea turtles. Sitting
in front of Fennell is a stunning
silver model of a J Class sailing
over a choppy sea, the sails as
smooth as could be and the sea
rough and rousing.