With seven children and three ex-wives behind him — his last divorce cost him an estimated £34 million — you might suppose that fashion genius George Davies would be happy to steer clear of the opposite sex.
But now at 72 and four years on from wife number three, Fiona — the former chief executive of his Per Una clothing range — George, I can reveal, has found love again.
The man behind Next and George @Asda — he sold Per Una to Marks & Spencer for £125 million in 2004 — is stepping out with Sarah Clark, an energetic mother of two, three decades his junior.
Back in love: After three wives and seven children George Davies has found love again
‘They met last June and are very happy together. He seems much more settled in himself,’ says a friend. ‘He’s certainly lost none of his romantic zeal.’
The couple were introduced when fitness instructor Sarah, who is in her early 40s, was involved in Cheltenham Fashion Week and organised a schools’ catwalk show at Gloucestershire College, where she lectures in fashion part-time.
‘We spent quite a bit of time working together on the project — and then one day I asked her out to dinner,’ says George.
‘Sarah also works as a Zumba exercise teacher and runs her own classes and is very good at it — not that I would ever Zumba!’
Sarah briefly moved in with grammar school-educated George, bringing her cat with her.
‘But she had to leave after a week because George is allergic to cats,’ says a friend. Davies, who lives in a farmhouse in Moreton-in-Marsh in the Cotswolds, says: ‘You wouldn’t be too far from the truth, but far be it from me to comment.’
Meanwhile, the tireless Liverpool-born businessman’s latest project is his FG4 fashion brand in Saudi Arabia. His daughter Emma Trayner, who works with him, is this week talking to manufacturers in China —though he is keen to encourage home-grown fashion manufacturers.
‘The important thing is getting the product right – it’s not about selling something for just a tenner,’ he says.
What of his most recent ex-wife Fiona, 49, to whom he was married for 18 years? Friends say she divides her time between a flat in London and a house near Cirencester. She has also found a new man — a local farmer.
Excited: Amber Le Bon is buying her own home
She took the plunge when she followed her mother into a catwalk career, but Amber Le Bon is not just a pretty face.
The gamine daughter of evergreen Yasmin Le Bon and Duran Duran rocker Simon has made her first significant investment — buying her own home.
Speaking at a bash for beauty products firm Molton Brown at the ICA, Amber, 23, could barely contain her excitement.
‘I’m ecstatic, I’m leaving home and getting my very own flat,’ she says.
‘I’m happy living with the parents but I decided if I didn’t get a place now it would be even more expensive in five years time.
'I’m proud to say I’ve done it all myself — although Mum and Dad helped me out a little bit.
‘You can earn a lot of money periodically in modelling but I’m trying to be sensible.’
And just to prove it Amber, who with her mother is a face of Monsoon, won’t be moving in with boyfriend Johnny Hynes.
‘I don’t really believe in all that. Besides I’m too young,’ she adds.
Split: Kristen McMenamy has finally ended her marriage to top fashion photographer Miles Aldridge
Veteran model Kristen McMenamy will soon be free to marry her art dealer love Ivor Braka — the go-to man for a Francis Bacon or a Lucian Freud — after finally ending her marriage to top fashion photographer Miles Aldridge.
The couple, who married 17 years ago in Holland Park — she was given away by Chanel show-off Karl Lagerfeld with Naomi Campbell as a bridesmaid in black — have been granted a decree nisi by the High Court, it was revealed yesterday.
According to the petition, Aldridge admitted adultery and Kristen found it ‘intolerable’ to live with him.
However, mother-of-two Kristen, 46, who pioneered the heroin chic look in the Nineties, tells me she doesn’t consider the divorce ‘official’ yet. ‘Obviously it’s a relief to get the nisi but it won’t be over properly until the summer,’ she says, before adding: ‘We have as good a relationship as you can expect after everything that’s happened.’
The U.S.-born model met Braka, 57, at a dinner party three months ago, as I revealed.
She said: ‘I was feeling a bit low and nearly missed my friend’s dinner party. But I thought — just get up off the sofa and go.
‘I sent my pal a cheeky message, saying: “Seat me next to an eligible bachelor.” It turned out to be Ivor.’
He is not a typical obsessive. Sober, well-spoken and polite, Robert Brown has fought a relentless campaign to prove he is the secret son of Princess Margaret.
For more than eight years the Jersey accountant has taken his claims before judges, treating each setback with unfailing courtesy. His efforts centre on a bid to have Margaret’s ‘sealed’ will opened.
This, he contends, will prove that he was born to the Queen’s sister in 1955. On Monday he goes back to the High Court to argue that he should be given leave to appeal under Freedom of Information laws.
So far his quest has cost him in the region of £100,000. Will he give up if this latest challenge fails? ‘Oh no, I will continue,’ he says. ‘My gut instinct is that I am right, even though I know how nutty it all sounds.’
Her household is already heaving with horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, goldfish and quail — which have just started laying again as the weather is warming up.
But now Chris Tarrant’s ex-wife Ingrid is adding to her menagerie, acquiring two black micro piglets from a local smallholding near her home in Surrey.
Ingrid Tarrant is adding to her menagerie after acquiring two black micro pigs
‘They are seven weeks old and arriving on Monday,’ says Ingrid, who reveals she has always had an urge to keep pigs. ‘I first thought about it when I was still married to You Know Who, but I wasn’t sure we had enough room then so in the end I got a labrador instead.’
Meanwhile, she has asked her Twitter followers to suggest names. ‘We’ve had Bangers and Mash, Smokey and Bacon, George and Mildred — but that isn’t any good because they are girls.
‘We’re going to draw them out of a hat next week.’
There was a panicky moment for Scottish Office officials on Wednesday morning.
Somebody had forgotten to lower their Whitehall building’s flag to half-mast, as per strict instructions for Baroness Thatcher’s funeral.
A Westminster figure spotted the gaffe and put in a friendly telephone call to Conservative Minister David Mundell to warn him.
Within seconds, I hear, the flag was whizzing down the flagpole to its more appropriate position.
‘Someone somewhere was given a right rocket,’ I am told.
PS My item about Old Etonian Edmund Marlowe’s homoerotic potboiler Alexander’s Choice continues to set pulses racing.
I reported how the title would not be added to the list of authors on the school website. Now I hear the writer, thought to be a peer of David Cameron and Boris Johnson, has been reprimanded by the OE Association and told not to use its data for marketing.
Marlowe — not his real name — tells me: ‘I replied saying I would fall in with their wishes and asked to advertise in the OE Review instead. I’ve just heard from their clerk that “with the best will in the world, I don’t think we’ll be able to advertise it”.’