A private view of handcrafted pieces by Arianna Cerrito
By Claire Rubinstein
Tomorrow, Wednesday 4th July, sees the leading-edge jewellery and fashion designer Arianna Cerrito host an exclusive private sale event at her beautiful London home.
Readers of The Steeples Times are invited to attend and offered a sneak peek at some of Arianna’s pieces on sale at very special prices. The event will also feature some of Cerrito’s latest pieces for spring/summer 2013 and her autumn/winter collections.
Arianna Cerrito’s invitation
The touch of voluptuous, silky fabrics on the skin and the embrace of dramatic jewellery are the essence of Arianna Cerrito’s designs. JEWELWEAR is a unique concept that is developed around creating luxury dresses and jewellery alongside each other as one statement. No longer does one have to search for the right jewellery to accessorise that Little Black Dress, the two are created and designed to complement each other with perfect Italian flair. The result is a sophisticated and extremely versatile look for the modern woman.
Cerrito has recently exhibited at Paris Fashion Week 2012 and was also selected to showcase her designs at Treasure London at Somerset House where she was celebrated along with other up-and-coming designers.
Come and meet the lady herself at this unmissable event from 10am until 7pm tomorrow and get ahead of the trend for next season’s parties.
Arianna Cerrito JEWELWEAR, 45 Moore Park Road, London, SW6 2HP. RSVP to[email protected]. Examples of Cerrito’s works can be viewed at http://www.ariannacerrito.com
This wildcard was the muse of Philip Treacy and discovered Sophie Dahl and Alexander McQueen. A flamboyant deal maker, Blow had a “natural sense of style” and a truly brilliant eye. She left this world far too soon and is sorely missed.
This blonde bombshell first appeared on the BBC aged 12 and since has presented shows including Channel 4’s Cook Yourself Thin. She’s also faced Anne Robinson on the Celebrity Weakest Link and written a number of cookbooks. A delight to spend time with, Michell has worked in places such as The Greenhouse and The Lanesborough and also as a private chef for a number of personalities. Here’s one to watch in the kitchen.
This Mayfair based property tycoon was born in Tehran and owns a Mangusta motor yacht named “Veni Vidi Vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”). His Rolls-Royce Phantom, numberplate “2V,” is often spotted outside London’s finest establishments and an SFO investigation into his business affairs has now been sensibly put to bed.
Stowe Opera’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’ at Winslow Hall
In July 2012, the Stowe Opera Company will perform Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro in the grounds of Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire.
The Stowe Opera Company was founded in 1995 by the renowned musician and conductor Robert Secret and originally performed in the grounds of Stowe School. The company’s repertoire has included Don Giovanni, Figaro, Don Carlos and Madam Butterfly and The Times described their musical standards as being: “A bit of a miracle.”
Winslow Hall, Winslow, Buckinghamshire, MK18 3HL
Winslow Hall itself is a perfect backdrop for such a performance and here the company will perform on six dates:
Saturday 21st July at 6.00 pm
Sunday 22nd July at 3.00 pm
Wednesday 25th July at 6.00 pm
Thursday 26th July at 6.00 pm
Saturday 28th July at 6.00 pm
Sunday 29th July at 3.00 pm
Each evening performance will have a 90-minute supper interval whilst the Sunday matinees will have a 30-minute interval. Tickets are £60 per person. For the comfort of the audience, the stage and auditorium will be covered by a performance marquee and seating will be tiered for optimum viewing.
Winslow Hall itself is a fascinating Grade I listed house that the architectural commentator Marcus Binney described as being: “A trophy without rival… The Rolls-Royce of English domestic architecture.” Built to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, the property has variously been a school, an office for RAF Bomber Command and an antiques showroom.
Restored as a private house by Sir Edward Tomkins, the former British ambassador to the Netherlands, and his wife following their purchase of it in 1959, Winslow Hall was offered for sale in May 2007. It was rumoured that the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, were to buy the house but ultimately it was sold to the former restaurateur Christopher Gilmour and his delightful Australian wife, Mardi.
The Gilmours, like previous custodians, generously allow the annual Winslow Show to take place each August opposite Winslow Hall and now with the arrival of the Stowe Opera Company, the building really is making it’s mark culturally also.
As Steven Berkoff once commented:
“A great opera house isn’t run by a director, but by a great administrator.”
Christopher Gilmour is indeed such a man and do I suspect that this will be a festival that should not be missed.
“The Queen of Mean” was a chain-smoking hotelier and real estate tycoon with a reputation for tyrannical behaviour. She took the view that “only the little people pay taxes” but was investigated and convicted of federal income tax evasion in 1989. Sentenced to 16 years, she served just 19 months in prison and 2 months under house arrest. Worth some $8 billion, Helmsley left her Maltese dog, Trouble, $12 million in trust.
A German who used many aliases but whose biggest pretence was to give the impression he was a member of the Rockefeller family. The Man in the Rockefeller Suit gives the best account of his exploits but it is for the 2009 parental kidnapping of his child, Reigh Storrow “Snooks” Mills Boss, by a Harvard graduate named Sandra Boss that he is best known. Jailed for four to five years after being convicted for kidnap, he was subsequently also charged with the 1985 murder of a Californian man named Jonathan Sohus. Whilst this fantasist of the first order rots in the clink, his former wife has built a new life in Knightsbridge, London.
John B. Goodman sold his family business, Goodman Manufacturing, for $1.43 billion in 2004 and founded the International Polo Club Palm Beach. This socialite and protégé of the $7 billion Ponzi-schemer Sir Allan Stanford, claimed: “I don’t know what happened” when put on trial for smashing his Bentley into a Hyundai driven by Scott Wilson in 2010. Bizarrely, he attempted to adopt his girlfriend as his daughter to save his fortune and after spending years under house, John Goodman was finally jailed for 16 years for killing Wilson in December 2014. Here is a case of an individual some called a “generous and decent man” who truly screwed up.
This reality television star commented of himself: “I may be a douche to some people, but I actually do run companies. I make a lot of money, and I’m more than capable of supporting myself.” The father of a child by Kourtney Kardashian, Disick owns a restaurant in New York’s Meatpacking District, generally sports Tod’s and boasts an extensive car collection. Sadly one is chrome wrapped.
Vadim J. Birstein wins the first Intelligence Book of the Year Award
Yesterday a reception was held in a fascinating hotel named the St. Ermin’s to announce the winner of the first Intelligence Book of the Year Awards.
The grand exterior of the recently refurbished St. Ermin's Hotel, Caxton Street, London, SW1H 0QW
The setting, just next to Scotland Yard, was most appropriate as the hotel has many connections to diplomacy, spying and covert operations. The building’s close proximity to the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Services (SIS, AKA MI6) was a reason it became a convenient venue where agents could meet in the 1930s and 1940s but it was when SIS took over an entire floor in 1936 to accommodate a new division that it became most important.
Section D, referring to “D” for destruction, was headed by Colonel Lawrence Grand and he was tasked with preparing plans for the sabotage of strategic sites in Europe that might fall into Nazi hands in the event of war. The division remained at the hotel until 1940 when Section D was absorbed into the Special Operations Executive but even after continued to use the St. Ermin’s as a meeting place.
Kim Philby in Russia in 1968, five years after defecting
The most famous spy linked to the hotel was Kim Philby. In his memoirs, My Silent War, Philby, whose cryptonym was “Stanley,” tells of being interviewed to join the SIS there and also of meeting Guy Burgess at his office in the building. He was also said to have used the hotel’s Caxton Bar with fellow Cambridge Five traitor Donald Duart Maclean, AKA “Homer.”
Invited by one of the judges, British intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, I found it intriguing to attend an event which mixed such luminaries as the espionage journalist and author Harry Chapman Pincher, the Evening Standard’s Mira Bar-Hillel, former CBS reporter Jesse Schulman and Claire Rubinstein, formerly of the BBC. A smattering of journalists, a racehorse owner and various representatives of the hotel equally were a delight to converse with as the champagne flowed.
The judging panel for the award, which featured a list of some 34 books, included an intelligence bibliophile and historian named Daniel J. Mulvenna, formerly of the Security Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Andrew Lownie, an author of a forthcoming book on the life of Guy Burgess; Michael Smith, an author of many books on espionage; and Nigel West, a former Conservative MP, intelligence historian and author who is also known as Rupert Allason.
Dr Vadim J. Birstein, scientist and historian, award-winning author, pictured at the St. Ermin’s Hotel with Glenmore S. Trenear-Harvey, Editor-in-Chief of the World Intelligence Review and an Intelligence Book of the Year Award judgeThe famous “Don’t Chatter” poster created by Nina Vatolina, an aunt of the "SMERSH" author Dr Vadim Birstein, during the first days of the Great Patriotic War
West spoke on behalf of the panel when he awarded Dr Vadim J. Birstein, a Russian-American historian and molecular geneticist, a £3,000 prize for his groundbreaking history of an acronym of a Russian phrase, SMERSH. In his account SMERSH: Stalin’s Secret Weapon Soviet Counter Intelligence in WWII, Birstein enlightens readers with his account of a phrase that means: “Death to spies.” Though the term is best known because of SMERSH being James Bond’s sinister opponent in Ian Fleming’s novels, the real life version was said to be far worse.
In his concluding remarks Nigel West commented that the spy genre is “thriving in literary terms” and indeed instead of SMERSH, may I add: “Long live the spies.”
For further information on the Intelligence Book of the Year Awards contact Tim Fordham-Moss on +44 (0) 771 049 1788 or email:[email protected]
