PHOTOS: Happy Birthday, Duchess Of Alba!
Feliz cumpleaￃﾱos, Duchess of Alba!
The Spanish royal (and we do mean royal -- she possesses 46 aristocratic titles, more titles recognized by an existing government than any other noble in the world) celebrates her 86th birthday today, and honestly, she's kind of our hero.
Here's your Duchess of Alba primer: Her full name is Maria del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva. (Fine, we'll 'fess up: we copied and pasted that.) The only child of the Duke of Alba, she plunged into two marriages beforemarrying again last year, gettingcontroversiallyhitched to commoner Alfonso Diez, who's 25 years her junior. (FYI,he's formally renounced any claim to her wealth.)
Duchess Cayetana is something of a force of nature: she's had seven children, and her fortune is estimated between $800 million to $4.7 billion,including a host of splendid Spanish real estate, paintings by Goya and Velazquez, a first-edition copy of "El Quixote" and letters written by Christopher Columbus. In her spare time, she even hangs with hunks likeTom CruiseandAntonio Banderas.
And finally, we think the duchess has brilliantly eccentric style, and we're not alone; she appeared onVanity Fair's International Best-Dressed Listin 2009. Her penchant for mixing kooky prints and bright colors with herfavorite lace tightsmeans she's always a sartorial surprise at events.
So yeah. We love her.
Take a look back at the matriarch's best outfits (going back to 1962!) below.
January 1962
February 1966
November 1968
September 1973
October 2009
December 2009
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
May 2010
June 2010
October 2010
October 2010
February 2011
March 2011
March 2011
May 2011
June 2011
July 2011
September 2011
September 2011
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December 2011
January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
