Page 32 Daily Mail, Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Is Fergie treading
a fine line with pen
‘ad’ aimed at fans?
Maureen LipMan was
insulted to be mistaken for the
mother of rula Lenska, who is
just one year her junior.
Lipman had lost her bag while
travelling to London with
Lenska and thought she might
have left it in Sainsbury’s.
When she rang the shop, they■ asked her: ‘Were you the lady
in the hat?’ She replied: ‘Yes! i
may have put my bag down...’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘and you
were with your daughter.’
pause. ‘My daughter?’
‘Yes, with the red.. .’
‘Yes, my 72-year-old daughter,
rula Lenska.’F
orbidden from
e x p l o i t i n g t h e
‘S u s s e x r o y a l ’
trademark around
t h e w o r l d , t h e
duke and duchess of
Sussex should take a leaf
out of Fergie’s book.
For i can disclose that the
irrepressible Sarah, duchess of
York, has alighted on a new way
to bring home the bacon — by
forging a commercial partner-
ship with one of the most illus-
trious italian manufacturers of
luxury goods, Montegrappa.
Fergie has teamed up with the
company to bring out a new
range of fountain pens, inspired
by the colours of nature.
‘i’m old-fashioned and almost
always work in long hand,’ says
the 60-year-old children’s author
on social media, explaining that
all her words flow onto the page
from Montegrappa nibs.
‘i use one of these pens to write
my books.’
The 18-carat gold nib on every
pen is engraved with Fergie’s
personal monogram ‘S’. The
price? A snip at £2,000 apiece.
Fergie’s spokesman hastens to
explain that the duchess does
not lay claim to the lion’s share
of the takings. ‘She gets a small
royalty,’ he tells me. ‘She gives a
percentage of that to the charity
Street Child.’
There appears, though, to be a
fly in Fergie’s inkwell, as MattWilson, media and public affairs
manager for the Advertising
Standards Agency, explains.
‘if the duchess has entered
into a commercial relationship
with the fountain pen brand,’ he
tells me, ‘that is an ad and it
should be disclosed as an ad.
‘As members of the public, we
should all know when what wesee and hear and interact with is
advertising. When it comes to
s o c i a l m e d i a , t h a t m e a n s
full disclosure.’
Fergie’s spokesman insists she
has done nothing wrong. ‘it’s
very clear on all the social media
postings by the duchess that it
is a commercial venture,’ says
a spokesman.TreaSurY minister Jesse
norman is doing his bit for the
planet by frequently forgoing the
ministerial limo. Such is his
devotion to green policy that
norman even cycled to Buckingham
palace the other day for his
swearing in, by the Queen, as a
member of the privy Council.■Zeta’s boy rocks
out in Big Apple
HIS parents may be Oscar-winning
actors, but it seems the son of Cath-
erine Zeta-Jones and Michael
Douglas is determined to put the
‘rock’ into Hollywood royalty.
Dylan, 19, posted a video on social
media of him performing as the
singer for a band in New York where
he is studying at the private Brown
University. Strutting
about the stage and
screeching into the
microphone, young
Dylan described
the evening
as: ‘My kind
o f Fr i d a y
night.’Signed up: Duchess with the pens