A Note About the Translation

This translation by SYLVIA MILLER first appeared on the Miller Sisters message board. I would like to thank her again for permitting me to use her translation. I have further translated some sections and also used language that was less literal and more contextual, but left in parentheses what I could not translate. I have also not corrected the several inaccuracies in the article- besides, I think we more or less know better.

The Miller Sisters (from Cosas magazine, Dec. 1999)

All Were To Be Princesses*

They are the women of the decade, who have redefined the concept of socialite and seduced two princes without kingdoms. In hardly two years they went from multimillionaire plebeians to grand and aristocratic ladies. What is their secret?

It seems that it was one century ago, but, it was hardly in 1990 when the world listened to the Miller sisters speak for the first time. Until that moment Pia, Alexandra and Marie-Chantal were no more than the daughters of a duty free magnate and his wife, an Ecuadorian born in Guayaquil, called Chantal, but named María Clara Pesantes, whom friends call affectionately "the last Incan princess." The two young women, without much help from the millions of their father and their mother's mad social ambitions, arrived in Manhattan to look for fortune. What they were looking for is not clear because the fortune that they already had was so great that it couldn’t be placed in a bag or measured easily. What Marie-Chantal and Alexandra needed was prestige, a currency not as durable as the the dollar or the German mark, but so much more valuable in the market of international debutantes.

The social stairway is made much shorter with the correct company. So Alexandra and Marie-Chantal’s first mission was this contest: to find a man suitable enough and one on which to lean. The search began in a party that will surely be remembered by generations, socialites, and aristocrats. Marie-Chantal, who years later would become the very admired princess from Greece, and the youngest sister, Alexandra, decided to celebrate their birthdays being inspired by the fashion of the 1960's. Marie Chantal, with enormous hoops of acrylic, white lip pencil, false lashes, her hair (escarmenado) and net stockings, showed up in a dress of rubber from Dolce & Gabbana. Alexandra, always more rebellious, used a sparkling original of Carnaby Street, a jacket of transparent vinil and a pop plunger of Versace. The picture of the two multimillionaire heiresses appeared in "Vogue", "Harper’s Bazaar" and "W", and from then on at two o’clock nobody forgot the smiling blondes that, climbed a table covered with packs of Marlboro and used glasses, redefined of a (plumazo) as the "socialite" concept. What came later is material from a novel. Marie-Chantal met Prince Pavlos of Greece, the very noble King Constantine’s son, at a party in San Francisco and married him. The parties for the wedding, carried out in the Orthodox Greek Cathedral of Santa Sofía in London, lasted four days and they included a spectacular dance for 900 people. Still today, almost four years later, this magnificent marriage is talked of. Every time her sisters, she, or her father, the duty free magnate Robert Miller is spoken of, the wedding is mentioned again. "I’m already tired of talking about the wedding!" asserts Her Royal Highness, who is called such by citizens, employees and the salespersons of Bergdorf Goodman. For the rest of the world, including her friends in three or four continents, it is simply MC. "The titles I have are of no great importance in my life.", MC says referring to the Greek crown, "I have never felt like a princess."

Alex and Alex

Alexandra has similar problems. She doesn’t want to hear a word more. It has been more than a year since her splendid wedding with Alexandre von Fürstenberg, son of Egon and Diane von Fürstenberg, which took place in 1998 in New York. Her older sister, Pia, married the heir Christopher Getty, grandson of J. Paul Getty in 1992, but her wedding, which included a ritual in Bali and a ride on an elephant, did not create as much expectation as those of her younger sisters.

Marie-Chantal and Alexandra are often presented as heroines of Henry James, millionaire North Americans seduced by impoverished aristocrats. The truth is that the comparison is not only cruel, but unjust. After everything, now both are respectable married women and mothers of princes.

Marie-Chantal has two children, Pavlos and Olympia. And Alexandra has just given birth a few months ago to little Talitha Alexandra. She had already said, "I always want what I don’t have, and I want a baby." Finally, her desire was made reality and she obtained the only thing that she lacked for absolute happiness. The godparents of the girl are the prince Pavlos of Greece and Samantha Kluge, daughter of multimillionaire John Kluge, one of the best friends of Alexandra.

"This is not the first Talitha of the family",explained Princess Lynn von Fürstenberg, the discharge, moraine, vivacious and sculptural second wife of Egon von Fürstenberg, the splendid grandfather. "The previous Talitha Getty died from an overdose in her pool of Marrakesh where she collapsed wrapped in a coat of minx cibelina."

In spite of her ultraglamorous death, the previous Talitha is a difficult example to continue for the new generations of Gettys and von Fürstenbergs, but the name, with all its dramatic and historical resonances, is perfect for this girl of blood relationships and money, who seems to be related to the whole world. The world that is worthwhile, at least. From Barry Diller, the multimillionaire of communications, that has been with the baby’s grandmother, Diane von Fürstenberg for almost three decades, to all the European crowned heads, bound to her through her uncle Pavlos.

Women of Today

While Marie-Chantal dedicates all her time to her children, Alexandra continues working next to her mother-in-law in the line of dresses that takes her name. "I want to have five children", assures Marie-Chantal, "I want a minivan with five baby seats in the back seat." Alexandra, in spite of her happiness, shows a less enthusiastic maternal instinct. In New York the rumor of her attractive husband’s youth infidelities still surfaces, and although nobody still has evidences of his supposed adventures, many believe that Talitha is a desperate effort to save a marriage in crisis. Alexandra, in any event, doesn't listen to the gossips.

The worst rumor that has arrived to their hearings, however, was published in the pages of the noted magazine "New York". There it was said that Alexandra and Marie-Chantal had been seen consuming cocaine in the bathroom of the Bowery Bar. "That was the worst moment in my life", says Marie-Chantal, "I was embarrassed by that, and I would never have put my son's life in danger. My father called me from Europe to ask me what happened. I had to explain to him that yes I had been in that place that night, but that I had not consumed any drug."

Alexandra, more cautious, simply responded to the accusations saying "Sometimes people seem to enjoy the failures of others. They are hoping we will fall."

The Miller sisters grew up in Hong Kong, where their father had the central headquarters of his powerful empire, and they studied in Europe. During their years in Paris they lived in a magnificent hotel located in Ile Saint Louis, and on their visits to New York settled in the family house of the Upper East Side, a mansion evaluated at 11.7 million dollars on the 71st street. "Once somebody called me 'bourgeoisically useless'", MC recounts, "And it hurt me a lot. I believe that it is because they always see us in parties, at night. Nobody knows that on our other face we are really wives, mothers and women."

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*The original secondary headline was "Todos Ibamos A Ser Princesas." That is the best translation I could come up with, but I'm sure it's not quite 100%. "Ibamos" is a past tense verb with not only several different meanings, but with a subject of "we"; while "a ser princesas" means "to be princesses." "Todos" means "Every, or all." Thus, I have translated it as best as I could.