Article on Marie-Chantal: "Me a spoiled princess? Totally not!"
Found this article from the Royal Blue Forum. It was posted by Netty.
This was in the new Tweed, a Dutch magazine, of June/July 2005. Original source it seems is Harper's Bazaar and Evening Standard. Nice pictures, but very posed as usual.
Business Babe Marie-Chantal
"Me a spoiled Princess? Totally not!"
She is the most known of the Miller Sisters. And the most successful one. Because talented designer of children's clothes and already ten years married to a prince. Marie-Chantal of Greece (36) is getting on very well and that is more than her as famously blond sisters Pia and Alex can say. 'MC' lives in London and jetsets with the European royals, but she remains an American.
At the corner of Tom Ford in Chelsea - the London area that quickly is taken by glamorous expats - lives Marie-Chantal of Greece. Together with her husband Pavlos (37), the Greek Crown Prince in exile, their four children Maria-Olympia (1996), Konstantine Alexios (1998), Achileas (2000) and Odysseas Kimon (2004), an enormous wardrobe, 216 pairs of shoes and a as possible even bigger reputation as style icon. When Albert Elbaz of Lanvin last year heard that MC, as Marie-Chantal mostly is called, would come to his atelier to get herself something for the wedding of the Spanish Crown Prince Felipe and his Letizia, he was in the clouds. "She is so beautiful! Just like her sister! They are all so blond and so beautiful!"
Impressive Imperium
It are superlatives Marie-Chantal can do very well without. Admitted, charismatic sisters often come with three - think: the Bröntes and the Gabors - and the Miller triumvirate is no exception on that. Halfway the 1990s the socialites were all over the magazines through their remarkable marriages, followed by equally gasping reports about their vacations, gala-visits and glamorous fashionmoments. That hype is over now: MCs eldest sister Pia silently divorced Christopher Getty and lives in South-Kensington, her youngest sister Alexandra divorced Prince Alexander von Furstenberg and saw her romance with the eternally single Tim Jefferies come to an end at the end of last year. This all makes Marie-Chantal the biggest success of the family. Not only her children's clothes line finally yields a profit and did she get her fourth child; she is also still happy with her Pavlos, with whom she celebrates her 10th wedding anniversary this year. And: MC is most likely the one who is going to succeed her father as head of the Duty Free-imperium with which he earned his many billions. "I started with attending board meetings," she says. "And meanwhile I try to earn my stripes on my own power."
Highhanded & Independent
She finds it annoying that she is still seen as a blond princess. "It all ran out of hand because my sister and I were in the Vanity Fair as 'The Three Graces". I understand that people find the fairytale and the romance interesting, but I married a banker, no prince. I respect Pavlos' background and his dedication to do good things for his country, but my norms and values are pure American East Coast. I get up at 6 to work. We were raised in prosperity and I love the British feeling for style and humour, but I am a real American: I want to earn respect, I want to proof that I can do something, before I eventually succeed my father. Respect is something you have to earn. Simply to get the praises of the media because you are accidentally nice looking on a picture, doesn't have any value." She continues: "From home we are traditionalists, so we were raised with the idea that the marriage is for ever. The divorces of my sisters have therefore been very interfering for everyone. The best way to deal with it is: act dignified. As family we for sure stay inseperable. "We call daily with eachother and we see eachother very often." With which sister she get on best? "That is like asking which one of the two I would push out of the window, if I had to. Ridiculous of course: I should never be able to give an answer to it," she says somewhat stiff. She herself is without doubt the best known of the Miller Sisters and also the most independent one. Alexandra might look as if she is the most outspoken sister, it was Marie-Chantal who ran away from the famous Swiss boarding-school Le Rosey when she was thirteen and later quit her studies art history in New York, because she found it 'too meaningless for words'. Her parents allowed her rebellious whims; even when she wanted to become a singer ("A fantasy that lasted two expensive years"), they let their daughter go on. "My father wanted that we all would become who we wanted to be," Marie-Chantal says. "And it is so much better to find out yourself than to be send by your parents."
One-stop Shopping
When she met Pavlos, much changed. "Before I got a relationship with him, I didn't have such clean-cut plans for the future," she says. "Because of my husband I started to see the importance of a strong relationship, and after our marriage the children already soon played a leading part, although I also always have wanted something for myself. Because I am a mother myself, I discovered the importance of one stop shopping. One place where you can get everything, where also your children like to go to. Five years ago someone told me that children's clothes were in the lift. I now have 87 sales points in America and an own shop in London on Walton Street. So I think I jumped in it on time, but it didn't go that easy. We had to work very hard, and like most young companies only last year we had a small profit. It has never been a magic wand story, I have pulled on it days and nights myself.
The importance of working hard
Although MC and Pavlos come from different worlds, they have many of the same ideas. "Pavlos was raised with lots of privileges, but has always worked hard - and I value that enormously," She says about her husband who went to the Military Academy of Sandhurst, went into the army, got his master's degree and now works as fundmanager. "We teach the children the importance of working hard. And respect: I hate bluntness, don't tolerate it. If we ever had been impudent towards the staff, my father would have hit us. I want my children to grow up as self-confident persons. But I find it even more important that they have manners. Learn to work comes instictive. If children see their parents reading a newspaper they will do it themselves too."
Daddy's drive
The little Maria-Olympia has at least a lightening example on her mother, because role models who combine a successful business occupation with a family are rare in the circles the royals move. "We often attend dinners in Europe," Marie-Chantal says. "Regularly a man then turns to me with the words: 'So you are allowed to work?' I find that perplexed, with such a person I couldn't live. I never received anyhing else than support from my husband. Happily, because I need the work to clear my brains. It costed me a year to finish the business plan. Do you want to succeed in business you have to start like a machine in America. There is no space to get it warm or to make mistakes. But I have the drive of my father: it is nice that we make profit overall, but the boy's line deserves more attention, like the fragrances and travel accessoires, we just have in the collection. It always can get better." What does a day look like? "I get up early, work one hour, help the children to school and get back at work. I often lunch with a friend or sister; thereafter I work until the children come back from school. The hours afterwards are for them, often Pavlos and I dine late in the evening outdoors with friends. At home we then watch television. I am addicted to The Sopranos, and we sometimes also sit two days in The West Wing. Many people go to the country in the weekend, but we then just like to stay in London. We also spend the vacations as a family: in the winter we go often to Gstaad and with Easter to harbour Island in the Bahamas - where my parents have a house. Now we are allowed to go to Greece again (until a short time ago the former Greek royal family wasn't allowed to enter the country, ed.) we go to Port Heli, south of Athens, in the summer. Like me the children learn Greek, because it is important that they are taught something of Pavlos' side of the family."
In Love with London
Is this red-blooded American happy in the British capital? "I must admit I found it harder to feel at home than I had estimated. But that was also because we first were in a rented house because our own house was being rebuild. The real at home feeling only came after we could move in there. However London is a nice place to live. I have the feeling that people keep ambition and family life in a healthier balance than in New York, and I think that the British are perfectly capable to combine their sense of style with humour. British women have more flair and are less scared to experiment. Americans are more serious and more understated. I sometimes wear a hat here, I would never do that in New York. So I may have the mentality of a real American, I have really lost my heart to London."
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Netty
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