The New Marie Antoinette!
That’s what critics are calling the Greek princess (in £640 Gucci trainers) who celebrated her 21st with an eye-poppingly ostentatious party at a Cotswolds mansion – complete with Prince Charles’s topless god-daughter
THIS high-society party of the year had it all — European royalty, fashion royalty and, for those dispossessed of a kingdom, there were even fake thrones to sit on.
Among the guests were King Felipe of Spain, designer Valentino, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and Prince Charles’s cousin and god-daughter India Hicks, who rocked up topless beneath her tuxedo.
As I reported on Monday, instead of a white dress shirt, India had her naked chest sprayed with white body paint with a black bow tie painted on to her torso.
The occasion was the joint 50th birthday of Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece and his daughter Princess Olympia’s 21st. Billed as a ‘ 5021 Revolution’ in honour of their respective ages, the party was held on Saturday at a Grade II-listed, 18th- century manor house in Farmington, Gloucestershire.
It showed considerable chutzpah to be celebrating a social uprising when the hosts are themselves monarchs in exile.
Inevitably it has provoked a huge backlash on social media with invidious comparisons being made to Marie-Antoinette, a symbol of the wanton extravagance of the 18th-century French monarchy.
The guest list was a Who’s Who of European nobility, with Queen Maxima of Holland, Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway in attendance.
CAROLE Bamford, the founder of Daylesford Organic and the queen bee of the Chipping Norton set, held the British end up along with Samantha Cameron’s mother Annabel Astor and her husband Viscount Astor, the Marquess of Worcester, and Dame Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-A-Porter.
lower down the social pecking order were American heiresses Paris Hilton and Nicky Rothschild, model Poppy Delevingne and her property developer father Charles Delevingne.
There was even a smattering of Eurotrash.
Some arrived at the £7.5 million, ten-bedroom house by helicopter (as one does). Guests were asked in advance to ‘revolutionise’ their black tie and they went to town with gaudy accessories. Birthday girl Olympia was dressed in £640 Gucci platform trainers, a floorlength tulle skirt by Australian bridal designer Steven Khalil and a metallic fascinator.
Her mother Marie-Chantal, the Crown Princess of Greece, had a huge ring of silver stars above her head created by milliner Philip Treacy, while Ivy Getty, great-- granddaugher of J. Paul Getty, came with horns on her head.
Others were more devilish still and took the dress code rather too literally. Society osteopath Marc Farah impersonated dead punk rocker Sid Vicious with a chain around his neck, earrings and a Sex Pistols T- shirt emblazoned with God Save The Queen.
Despite the large royal contin- gent there was no social segregation and everyone was allowed to move freely and sit wherever they wanted at round tables.
‘I was chatting to a charming lady who said she was the Queen of Holland,’ said one party-goer. ‘I went off to Google her and her name came up as a pub. I told her and she was very amused.’
The music room was decorated
with huge trees festooned with disco balls and silver balloons. The food was as opulent as the headgear. There were towering pyramids of macaroons — put on especially for Olympia, who has something of a sweet tooth — and red velvet cake served on gold platters.
Tables were bedecked with candelabras, lavish floral arrangements of delphiniums, lupins and roses and pineapples sprayed with gold, which some thought was a tacky step too far.
For those with less rarefied tastes, there was American- style cuisine including a hot dog and burger stand with American mustard, ketchup and hot sauce.
Vogue fashion illustrator Manuel Santelices drew revellers at play and a photobooth was laid on con- taining a double bed flanked by a decorative lion and a ceramic dog.
Paris Hilton seemed more interested in herself than the birthday girl and took endless ‘selfies’. She and her sister Nicky Rothschild posed in the photobooth with a three-tier cake.
For some guests it was their second party that day. Prince Michael and Princess Michael of Kent and Nicky Rothschild had earlier attended playwright Sir Tom Stoppard’s 80th in London.
Others were conspicuous by their absence. Debbie von Bismarck, 57, appeared without her son Nikolai, who is dating supermodel Kate Moss and has just reportedly returned from America where he was sent for a detox.
He was at another Cotswolds bash down the road to celebrate Lord Of The Rings star Liv Tyler’s 40th birthday.
At one point, Isabel ‘Izzy’ Getty, great-granddaughter of J. Paul Getty, got so hands-on while dancing with hunky American architect Dax Miller, who is married to heiress Alexandra von Furstenberg, that she elbowed him in the face.
She wrote to him the morning after, joking online: ‘ So sorry for the stitches, best dancers of the night!’
Crown Prince Pavlos, 50, is the son of Prince Philip’s cousin, the deposed Constantine II. He lives in London and the Cotswolds. He is married to clothes designer Marie-Chantal, the daughter of American billionaire Robert W. Miller, and has five children.
He paid tribute to his daughter, who turns 21 on July 25 and was presented with a cake decorated with gold-coloured candles.
‘In your life you have done a lot of things that have impressed, depressed, and driven us crazy,’ he said. ‘ Let me tell you a few things about life with Olympia: first of all, you’re beautiful, you’re full of energy, energy that comes from your mother like nowhere else before.’
Olympia spent most her child- hood in London. She went to boarding school in Switzerland and is a second-year photography student at Parsons School of Design in New York.
She was romantically linked to her godfather’s son, Prince Harry, last year, but royal sources denied the rumours.
Earlier this year, she starred alongside Lady Amelia Windsor in a Dolce & Gabbana campaign.
AFTER a party there is always a hangover. And Princess Olympia is now suffering a backlash on social media, where she has posted party pictures on her Instagram account.
‘You are too much and the fact that your people are near starving shows who you are, spoiled ****!’ writes one critic.
Says another: ‘ Ridiculous considering Greece is in a s***hole right now. And while the country is poor this little girl gets the life . . . very nice.’
Another comments: ‘If the media says you’re such a wonderful “princess” shouldn’t you be worried with your country’s economic problems?! After all they are your people, I assume.
‘ This reminds me of Marie-Antoinette spending the money that her people, the French, didn’t have and needed.
‘So please stop using the title of “princess” you are not one.’
Another is even more succinct: ‘ Fake self- appointed royalty. There is no Princess of Greece. Drop the title.’