The death of Ivana Trump last week reminded me of a story I had always meant to check. I rang its central figure, Sir Humphry Wakefield, who was forthcoming. In the late 1980s, Ivana, then married to the man she called ‘the Donald’, was doing up the Plaza Hotel in New York, which her husband owned. She decided to name the Plaza’s 12 top suites after great British country houses – Chatsworth, Wilton, Floors etc. So she commissioned Humphry, whose company specialises in the perfect reproduction of important furniture, to install copies of relevant objects from the houses in the appropriate suite. This involved Humphry meeting the couple, although Donald was frequently interrupted to take calls from three angry men in Atlantic City who seemed to be annoying him.
Unabashed by the man she called ‘Sir Wakefield’, Ivana would undress in front of him to try the couture on
Sometimes, dress designers would come in bearing expensive dresses which they gave Ivana free in return for publicity. Unabashed
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