Exclusive interview with His Royal Highness Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia

Your last name is Karageorgevich, but you don’t speak Serbo-Croatian because your father thought this language would be totally useless.

My family was exiled in 1941 and yes, my father and my mother thought it would be more useful to learn French first and also Italian and English since by law we were not allowed back and had been declared enemies of the people.

You were raised in Versailles next to the royal palace and you are related to the Belgian and the Greek royal houses and the Russian imperial family as well. You studied in Paris and now live in Manhattan for decades. Interesting combination. How did this shape you of who you are today? 

This life gave me a very cosmopolitan upbringing with lots of traveling and speaking four languages fluently. Because of that I feel at home in many different countries and because I speak fluently French, English, Italian, Spanish and I understand Portuguese it gave me an appreciation for so many different cultures. Being in exile at the same time made me realize how important one’s roots are and got me interested in the history of my family at large. It’s always nice to see cousins when I travel and also to meet new ones.

Your maternal grandparents were the King and Queen of Italy, Umberto II. and Marie José. They raised your mother, Her Royal Highness Princess Maria Pia during their reign. After Word War II. Italy became a republic, and the royal family went to exile. What did it mean to you, how we could immagine this new situation you found yourself in?

It actually didn’t happen to me since I was born after all this in 1958. But that is something I never discussed with them. Life was what it was, everybody adapted to their new life and moved on. I was very close to all my grandparents. We were always raised with the idea that because we were royals it was our duty to always set an example: we had to be better behaved than the other kids, we were taught kindness and respect for others at all time. My other grandmother Olga was very cozy and loved children, she was gentle and kind with us and we could always find an ally in her. My maternal grandmother Marie José was also very kind to us grandchildren and she was marvelously eccentric and so funny. I used to laugh so much with her. She just had this amazing sense of humor. She was also very brave and had fought against fascism during the war.  She had a very strong personality and was never afraid to say what she believed. For that reason Mussolini hated her and had her spied on. She told me once that he was a horrible man, a buffoon and had total contempt for him. In 1943 Italy was still allied with Germany. My mother told me that as they were driving back to the Quirinal Palace in an open car, they saw Nazi officers in another open car next to them and that my grandmother flew into a rage screaming at them “maiali, maiali!” In Italian which means “pigs, pigs!” My mother was terrified but also full of admiration for her. The poor lady-in-waiting with them almost fainted but thank God nothing happened. She received many congratulations for her courage. She hated Mussolini and actively plotted against him and saved many Jewish families from being deported to concentration camps.

February 1972 she had been invited to St. Moritz by the Shah of Iran. My uncle Vittorio Emanuele who was then working for Agusta had sent  her to be picked up in Geneva with Corrado Agusta’s plane, a Dassault  Mystere 20. As they were approaching the airport the aerobrakes got stuck and they had to attempt landing on the frozen lake. It crash landed and broke in two on impact! The shock was so hard my grandmother suffered  several lesions to her spinal cord and so did the pilots. My grandmother told us laughing that on impact the tail broke off, turned around and the thrust from the engines was still so strong that the stewardess in the back had her clothes blown off and ended up naked!  Six Italian doctors, young, blond and very handsome who happened to be cross country skiing on the lake saw the crash and rushed to help. My grandmother again laughing said to us “I saw these beautiful men looking like Vikings looking at me so I thought they were angels and I was in heaven!” It was actually a miracle that nobody died and that the ice didn’t break.

You studied business law at the University of Paris, after that you moved to New York and tried yourself on Wall Street. It was just a short period and then you joined Sotheby’s. 

Yes, it was actually a training program to learn a bit about finance.

You left the Jewelry Department after 17 years as the senior vice president to join Bernard Arnault’s new acquisition Phillips de Pury&Luxembourg. It has been such an amazing career, hasn’t it? 

I was a jewelry expert and gemologist then and I appraised jewels and was involved in all aspects of auctions. I saw the most amazing jewels imaginable. I also learned so much about every other works of art that were auctioned there too. It was so interesting.

In 1999 you launched your first jewelry collection sold by Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman. Later customers could buy your creations in other luxury department stores (Barneys and Neiman Marcus) as well. Why jewelry design?

It happened by chance when a friend of mine came back from Brazil with a  pair of cufflinks made of lovely stones but badly mounted. I suggested he get rid of the prongs, drill a hole in the center and place a diamond right there (or an emerald, or a ruby, or a sapphire) and have the link through them. That way you only see a semi-precious stone with a precious stone in the middle. That concept worked so well we made an entire collection of cufflinks. Then it evolved into a line for women too, including a tiara that was on exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2003. You can still see all that on my website (www.princedimitri.com) or my Instagram (@prince.dimitri) and in my new book published by Rizzoli called “Once Upon a Diamond”. I always loved jewels and especially the wonderful pieces of my family but I never copied them. Maybe details inspired me and certainly their marvelous quality but that was all. What really inspires me are different shapes I see in the decorative arts of every epoch. The jewels I grew up staring at fascinated me because they possessed this mysterious ability to create a halo of light, an aura of glamour, around the wearer. With these jewels came the privilege of beauty that placed she who wore them above the rest of us common mortals. I felt I was the lucky witness of magic. That feeling always stayed with me and when I design, I try to re-create it. Proportion is always a key element. After all, the Greeks had invented the “divine proportion,” that important difference between static and dynamic harmony. Superlative quality is essential. Details, especially the hidden ones, are fundamental for they convey this marvelous feeling of luxury. Because I have always found novelty so exciting, I work with unusual materials and color combinations. There are two types of inspiration: one comes from shapes or even a detail spotted in nature or in decorative arts from different cultures; the other comes from gems themselves. As I once read, “to those who can listen even stones speak.”

Your clients often bring their old jewelries with themselves to you to modernize it.

I love the concept of alchemy, with its fascinating power to change lead into gold, so I enjoy transforming and putting things together and giving them a new life. There is nothing more satisfying than having a friend confess that she has all this old, unwearable jewelry and to be able to conjure up the alchemical skill to turn it into new adornments that will give her pleasure forever.

Why is your brand Prince Dimitri is so spectacular?

You tell me…

Do you have any specific characteristics in your design?

The paisley motif, the cross and the Knot of Savoy are three shapes I like a lot. I have designed a bridal collection with Swarovski based on the Knot of Savoy also known as the knot of true love. My buyers are people who have seen it all and want something different.

As you mentioned above a few days ago your second book (Once Upon a Diamond: A Family Tradition of Royal Jewels) was published by Rizzoli with foreword by fashion designer Carolina Herrera. How do you describe the publication? Is it a beautiful album about jewelries or a family story? 

It is both about my family’s jewelry, interesting family stories and then my work. It is a beautiful coffee table book with fabulous photos.

What do you think about the future of monarchy, especially in those countries where the political system was changed in the last century? Your first cousin His Royal Highness the Prince of Venice is quite active to be relevant in Italy, recently he changed the succession line for example.  

Yes, he is very popular in Italy. I hope monarchies last but I think it’s more a thing of the past now. Very few people understand the good that system can do for a country. There are eleven monarchies left and in each one of them the royal family does a fantastic job of doing good thing for their people even if there are a few scandals sometimes.

You have a twin brother and two other siblings from the same parents and a half brother on your father’s side. How important is the family to you? Do you visit regularly other family members as well in Europe for example from the Greek, Italian, Belgian, Spanish or the Russian branches?

Family is very important and I often see cousins from everywhere.

You are not only a royal descendent, but a well-known member of New York society life. How should we imagine your everydays?

Lots of work, lots of social activities and sports too. Water skiing is my other passion along with music and spirituality.

Photos: Courtesy of Prince Dimitri