Diana’s dress maker splits with ex-PM’s grandson
SHE made dresses worn by Princess Diana before becoming a best- selling novelist, but Arabella Pollen’s second marriage has come to an unhappy ending.
The author known as Bella Pollen has finally separated from publisher David Macmillan, grandson of former Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, after 23 years.
‘It’s very sad, but the marriage is over,’ confirms a friend of the couple.
Bella, 57, who is the daughter of former Sotheby’s New York chairman Peregrine Pollen, has spoken of how she felt so trapped by domesticity that she once withdrew two of her four children from school and fled with them to the family’s house in the U.S. state of Colorado for several months.
David, 60, whose elder brother is the Earl of Stockton, grew up at Highgrove, the Gloucestershire home later bought by Prince Charles. He was understanding when his wife went through her ‘panic’ in 2002.
‘He knew that to keep me tied down might make me fly for good,’ Bella later said. ‘ He was incredibly generous-spirited and told me to go for as long as I needed to.’
Her two younger children, Finn, then eight, and five-year- old Mabel went with her (her older children by her first marriage were in the middle of exams). She sold the escapade to them as an adventure, and they found themselves having to manage in a way unlike their comfortable life in London’s swanky Notting Hill.
‘We had to be self- sufficient,’ she said. ‘There were mountain lions, there was deep snow. Our nearest shop was two hours away. When the car broke down we had to walk for miles in the freezing darkness. It was good for all of us.’
Bella is said to have told David their marriage was over before she travelled alone to South America earlier this year.
She was previously married to art dealer Giacomo Dante Algranti.
Her fashion label, Arabella Pollen, was created when she was just 19 and it became famous after Diana was seen wearing one of her dresses.
She went on to design the scarlet uniforms still worn by Virgin Atlantic air stewardesses.