14-05-2025
EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Lace and Superwoman author Shirley Conran leaves half her fortune to designer Jasper Conran, the fashion designer she was estranged from for a decade
Lace and Superwoman author Shirley Conran leaves half her fortune to designer Jasper Conran, the fashion designer she was estranged from for a decade
She said she spent 20 years making a fortune – an odyssey which took her from being a penniless divorcee, singlehandedly bringing up two infant sons, to the status of Superwoman.
That, of course, was the title of her first book, which topped the bestseller list for four months, propelling her towards ownership of a chateau near Cannes, plus three apartments in Monaco, and – by 1994 – being named as one of the 100 richest women in Britain.
But Shirley Conran, revered at the Daily Mail for establishing 'Femail', also said that she spent the next 20 years giving away much of that fortune, often to benefit women's causes or in specific acts of philanthropy, like paying for a new Collection of Modern Art at her alma mater, St Paul's Girls' School.
Now, a year after her death aged 91 – just a week after a damehood had been conferred on her in hospital – her will, published this week, shows that she was true to her word.
Dame Shirley left £2.5million, a fraction of the riches that snowballed after she received a £1million advance for Lace, just seven years after the publication of Superwoman, in which she'd warned that 'life is too short to stuff a mushroom'.
Often described as the first 'bonkbuster', Lace was the first of six she knocked out within 15 years.
Yet, by the time she drew up the will, in 2022, there was no chateau nor even one apartment in Monaco.
Instead, there were two flats, both in Bayswater, west London, in one of which Dame Shirley lived until her final illness.
She left one of these to her grandson Sam and the other to his brother, Max. Both are the sons of Sebastian, 69, Dame Shirley's elder son by the late Sir Terence Conran, the first of her three husbands and the man she would always describe as the love of her life, despite their fractious divorce in 1962, after seven years of marriage.
The remainder of her estate is split equally between Sebastian and his younger brother, and fellow designer, Jasper, 65.
That last detail is eloquent testimony to Shirley Conran's refusal ever to give up: she and Jasper were very publicly estranged from 2002 for more than a decade.
But they were reconciled in 2015 when Jasper married Irish artist, Oisin Byrne.
Having co-founded the Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca, her credentials are undeniable, yet Thomasina Miers has fallen foul of political correctness.
The former MasterChef winner says: 'It's really interesting to me, this debate about what you're 'allowed' to cook. I've written a new book, Mexican Table, and my publisher's worried about promoting it in the States, for fear of it being called cultural appropriation.'
Ay caramba!
Ashcroft's next target: Farage
Michael Ashcroft was in mischievous mood as he launched Red Flag, his updated biography of the PM, in Westminster.
'What is Sir Keir Starmer's great secret?' he asked, teasingly alluding to 'some fabulous gossip' and thanking 'the many sources' who'd helped him anonymously.
'There are one or two here tonight,' reflected the peer, whose guests included Nick Brown, chief whip under five Labour leaders.
Ashcroft is assured of full co-operation on his next book – analysing the rise of Reform.
'We shook hands on it – I look forward to working together,' he added, singling out his star guest: Nigel Farage.
He missed very few chances behind the stumps playing for England. Nor does Jack Russell – once named the best wicketkeeper in the world by cricket bible Wisden – let many slip past him as an artist.
Determined to 'immortalise' British war veterans, he takes particular pleasure in a recent portrait of Squadron Leader Johnny Johnson, the last surviving member of the Dambusters Raid.
'I'd spent several years looking around the country for him,' he tells me. 'I finally found him in August 2022 – a few miles down the road from me in Bristol.'
Johnson died three months later aged 101 – but it was time enough for Russell, 61, to complete the portrait.
'An absolute privilege,' he says. 'The most mesmerizing part was to sit and chat with him and listen to the most amazing life story.'
Poppy Delevingne pulls out of movie project
Poppy Delevingne is looking forward to giving birth to her first child this month, but, sadly, she's suffered a setback in her professional life.
I hear that the model and actress, 39, has left the cast of US film The Gun On Second Street.
Its director, Rohit Karn Batra, told me a year ago that he had chosen Poppy because he 'wanted to cast someone who was posh but with a West Virginia twang'.
Now, however, he says: 'Poppy is no longer a part of the production.'
Speaking at the DDA cocktail party at the Cannes Film Festival, he says her role will now go to Sean Penn's daughter, Dylan, 34.
Poppy's spokesman insists it was her decision to move away from the project.
First family wedding in a century at Liverpool's Knowsley Hall as the Earl and Countess of Derby's only daughter gets engaged
The Epsom Derby is not for three weeks, but the Earl of Derby's family are already celebrating.
I hear that the Earl and Countess's only daughter, Lady Henrietta Stanley, has got engaged.
Hetty, 28, as she's known to chums, is to marry Alexander 'Sasha' Reviakin, 28, a descendant of newspaper magnate William Berry, the 1st Viscount Camrose.
'They met last year at the National Portrait Gallery,' a friend tells me.
Sasha, who attended £52,000-a-year Winchester College, is the only son of Russian art collector Sergei Reviakin and artist Rosanna Gardner.
'We are absolutely thrilled that Sasha has proposed to our beautiful Hetty,' Lord Derby tells me. 'She has looked radiant since the day they started going out last year.'
The couple are due to exchange vows at Knowsley Hall, Lady Henrietta's ancestral family seat near Liverpool. It's famous for Knowsley Safari Park, opened by the earl's uncle in 1971.
'It will be very exciting to be hosting a family wedding at Knowsley Hall, which we suspect has not happened for over a century,' Lord Derby adds.
The Epsom Derby, in Surrey, was established by the 12th Earl in 1718.
