What a stink! Bella Freud’s perfume brand goes broke after challenging year
Her father left a fortune of £96 million, but has Bella Freud lost her own Midas touch, at least for now?
I ask because the acclaimed fashion designer — one of 14 children Lucian Freud acknowledged as his own — is saying goodbye to what has been described as her “luxury perfume brand,” Bella Freud Parfum.
Despite selling scented candles for £50 each and, in a family nod to her great-grandfather, Sigmund Freud, a creation called ‘Psychoanalysis Eau de Parfum’ – £165 for 100ml – the company is now in liquidation.
It is a rare setback for Bella, who has enjoyed success in interior design, filmmaking and publishing, as well as creating clothes that have a cult following among the likes of Sienna Miller, Olivia Wilde and Kate Moss, the latter of whom posed nude and pregnant for Bella’s father in a portrait that fetched £3.9m.
Bella refuses to comment on the fate of her eponymous perfume company, but observers note that the parent company, Bella Freud Ltd, has itself endured a challenging year in which assets have shrunk from £900,000 to just over £100,000.
Bella has had success in interior design, filmmaking and publishing, as well as creating clothing that enjoys a ‘cult status’ among the likes of Sienna Miller, Olivia Wilde and Kate Moss (Bella and Moss pictured at Cosmoss’s first anniversary)
Bella refuses to comment on the fate of her eponymous perfume company, but its parent company, Bella Freud Ltd, has endured a challenging year with assets dwindling from £900,000 to just over £100,000
Among the perfumes is a nod to her famous grandfather Sigmund Freud – ‘Psychoanalysis Eau de Parfum’ – £165 for 100ml
The current summer sale – on a wide range of items from pinstripe trousers and hoodies to hats and cushion covers – offers discounts of up to 70 percent.
One thing is certain: Bella, 63, who was born the same year as two of her half-sisters, Isobel – one of Freud’s four children by Suzy Boyt – and Lucy, one of the four other children he had, will get little or nothing from make an upset. fathered by Katherine McAdam.
As children, she and her younger sister Esther accompanied their mother, Bernardine Coverley, to Morocco, where they lived in a run-down hotel in Marrakech.
This experience inspired Esther to write her first novel, Hideous Kinky, which was later made into a film starring Kate Winslet.
Separated from her husband, White Mischief author James Fox, Bella has been thinking: ‘I used to wonder what was going to happen… now I’m thinking, ‘How am I going to make this happen?’
Look forward to Freud’s next chapter.