Pavlos and Marie-Chantal current events 2: October 2005-June 2006

[ChevalieurduCiel]

I don't like Paris Hilton either!She looks like Jiraff!

[iceflower]

Originally Posted by m 12

Here are the scans of Vogue.

Thanks a lot for the scans m 12. I love that kind of classy pics :)

[m 12]

Originally Posted by iceflower

Thanks a lot for the scans m 12. I love that kind of classy pics :)

You're so welcome:)

[princess olga]

Originally Posted by Wallis

I agree with this whole comment. I too was stunned. I would have been afraid to have criticized my husband's family in public, where they can easily read it or at least get wind of it.

Same here! Let alone if my husband's aunt from his dad's side was QUEEN SOPHIA OF SPAIN, and one aunt from his mom's side the formidable Danish queen Margarethe! To say nothing of other family members who are royals! Imagine queen Margarethe, or Frederik, or Felipe or Sophia of Spain reading this! All these people are DIRECT family of Pavlos, and thus of MC's own kids as well. Almost makes you wonder whether these royals have perhaps been not as welcoming to MC as we'd like to believe? Or, more likely, MC has come down to earth from cloud 9, and perceives royals for what they are: humans like anyone else. Or rather, humans who for the most part, wouldn't be able to really earn their own pay check if you'd let them loose from their golden cages into the real world! And that may well be very true for most of these royals out there today.

Originally Posted by Wallis

Also, it is hard to make money.

Yes, it sure is. It's one thing to earn a pay check working for "the Man", as in, any employer, but, as you're alluding, it's even harder to have your own company and make that work. And yes in that sense, most current royals have nothing on Robert Miller. (Bar a bunch that does earn their own living, like Joachim of Denmark who's a farmer, like the princes of Liechtenstein who all work as financiers, or princess Alexia of Greece who (used to?) work with disabled children for a living.)

Originally Posted by Wallis

But I also agree with what you said at the end. Was this a p.r. move? I mentioned in previous posts that I met Marie Chantal at her store on Madison Avenue here in New York. She was very friendly. I didn't look at her much (like a typical New Yorker around a celebrity), but she was curious about whether or not I had kids and who was I buying the clothing for. Perhaps she was warm and friendly, but perhaps she was also trying to get an idea of what kind of customers are coming to her store.

Nothing wrong with a PR move indeed, I'd do it in a heart beat too, if I'd been in her shoes. She clearly wants her business to become a success, she's leveraging the tools within her reach. I suspect that her conversation with you in her store was therefore two-fold indeed: on the one level, I'm sure she enjoyed the person to person interaction, but meanwhile, any information about how you think and how that influences your behavior as a consumer, is valuable information for someone like her.
Also what I sense out of this is that she enjoys getting information from outside of her own rarefied bubble of an existence, and that should be applauded, I totally agree on that.

And last, also a very telling, in my opinion, detail in the interview is how she underlines the fact she herself "feels American."

Very revealing. This is a person who grew up outside of the US mostly, in places like Paris and Hong Kong. With this clear statement of "being an American at heart" she seems to want to underline the fact she doesn't feel she belongs to this upper caste of, let's face it, privileged people whose very purpose in life hinges on a medieval and undemocratic concept.

Which is exactly how most Americans seem to think about royalty, if they give it any thought at all. The States has its own fair share of vacuous royalty in people like Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton or whatever, but the prevailing attitude in America is that if anyone deserves admiration, it's those who worked harder than most and made a success of their lives against all odds. This seems to be the exact message MC seems to want to convey.

[princess olga]

Originally Posted by Bella

I agree with alot of what you said, Princess Olga. I tend to think MC holds a bit of resentment towards the "ruling" royal families, perhaps because it only makes her position less important or because she might feel her husband (and his family) were cheated out of their destiny (for lack of a better word) and probably because her son will never become king which she probably feels is his birthright.

Bella, interesting points, that's definitely a probable explanation too. She probably loathes having to hang out with people she deems no more talented or special than anyone else, but all the same these people still get thrones for <their> kids! MC in all likelyhood, must have been a tad envious in this regard, that's understandable. However, I do think she's moved on mentally from that, I sense that by the fact she's so gung ho about building up her own clothing empire!

Originally Posted by Bella

However, if you take anyone out of their situation, they'd be lost. Including herself. [..] As for being born into a priviledged position (rather than working for it), you really can't blame anyone for that. I once read a comment about the Prince of Wales where someone said 'you can't blame him for the life he was born into just as you can't blame someone born into a less fortunate life.' Or something like that. [..]It's what they do with their advantages that really matters as well as the knowledge that (alot of times) their words and actions can have a positive (or negative) effect on those around them.

Very true, and the Prince of Wales in fact is a great example in point of someone who could have spent his ample days bathing in the luxury and privilege he was born in, and what does he do? Stick his neck out for organic farming, before it was popular, and against ugly post modern architecture that's so unlivable but shoved down the throat of us common folk because we certainly couldn't fathom the 'fascinating intellectual visions' behind many of those concrete and glass monstrosities?

Charles uses a lot of his power for causes he's passionate about, and he puts his money where his mouth is, i.e. into a profitable organic farm of his own. I think Robert Miller would approve! :)

But what folks like fred of denmark or alexander of the netherlands are doing for the greater good besides cutting ribbons, and flying around the world to talk about how scarce a source water is (while hawking solutions that would benefit the big corporations of the globe mind you) or flying around the world to participate in sailing competitions, besides that, I haven't the faintest, actually, and neither, probably does Marie Chantal, hence her gutsy public criticism.

[Wallis]

Originally Posted by princess olga

Charles uses a lot of his power for causes he's passionate about, and he puts his money where his mouth is, i.e. into a profitable organic farm of his own. I think Robert Miller would approve! :)

But what folks like fred of denmark or alexander of the netherlands are doing for the greater good besides cutting ribbons, and flying around the world to talk about how scarce a source water is (while hawking solutions that would benefit the big corporations of the globe mind you) or flying around the world to participate in sailing competitions, besides that, I haven't the faintest, actually, and neither, probably does Marie Chantal, hence her gutsy public criticism.

Robert Miller would also approve of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates who are giving most of their money to charity. Their children are not inheriting the bulk of their money. Angelina Jolie also give a third of her money to charity and Caroline Kennedy also gives to charity and volunteered to help the public school system here in New York.

I don't know what the royals in Europe do so I won't pass judgement. But there are wealthy role models in America that they could look to.

By the way, I too detected resentment in Marie Chantal's article regarding royals, but I agree that she probably has gotten over it. But I would love to know how she feels about Mary Donaldson or Mari Mette (sp).

Also her comment about being an American is typical. My parents are from Puerto Rico and I was born and raised in New York. I look ethnic so when people ask me about my ethnicity, I say my parents were born in Puerto Rico and I was born in New York. Like me, I think Marie Chantal feels no attachment to her mother's homeland so she and I both consider ourselves American.

[Anna_R]

Time for a new thread, which can be found here

Thank you all for your contributions.