Whatever happened to 3 Hong Kong-raised women who became princesses after marrying into European roy
Alexandra Manley was born and raised in Hong Kong. Of Eurasian descent, Manley was christened at Saint John’s Cathedral and attended Quarry Bay Junior School from 1969 to 1971 and then went on to Glenealy and Island School.
She studied international business at Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria and also studied in England and Japan before coming back to Hong Kong where she worked in sales and marketing.
She met Prince Joachim of Denmark, the younger son of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, at a party in Hong Kong in 1994, when he was working for shipping company Maersk in the city. By the summer of 1995 it was announced they were engaged to be married, the prince proposed to Manley while they were vacationing in the Philippines. They were married in Denmark in November of the same year. Joachim was 25 years old and Manley 30 at the time.
“Fairy tale wedding day for Denmark’s new princess”, was the headline in the SCMP at the time, and it reported how Manley had been married “in a dress of thick Italian silk embroidered with 8,900 pearls”, and that “her bouquet featured Hong Kong’s own bauhinia flower” and “the vast Frederiksborg Castle Church was decorated with more than 10,000 blooms cascading down its columns and covering the silver and gold altar”. The festivities continued at Fredensborg Palace as Alexandra Manley became Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
The royal couple had two sons, Prince Nikolai William Alexander Frederik born in August 1999 and Prince Felix Henrik Valdemar Christian born in July 2002. She was popular with the Danish people, dubbed the Diana of the North. However, the marriage did not last and in September 2004 the couple announced their separation – the first Danish royals to divorce since 1846. In 2007 Manley married Danish filmmaker Martin Jørgensen but they divorced in 2015. She is now known as Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg.
Marie-Chantal Miller, the daughter of Hong Kong-based billionaire co-founder of DFS Robert Warren Miller, was born in London in 1968, but she was raised in Hong Kong. She attended The Peak School until the age of 9 when she went to boarding school at Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland.
In 1995, Marie-Chantal became engaged to Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece, son of the deposed King Constantine II and Queen Anne Marie of Denmark. Her heart-shaped engagement ring was a cabochon-cut sapphire and diamond. The royal wedding took place on July 1, 1995 at St Sophia’s Cathedral in London and it was attended by many members from the European royal families. She is known as Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece, Princess of Denmark.
The couple have five children, Princess Maria-Olympia born in 1996, Prince Constantine-Alexios born in 1998, Prince Archileas-Andreas born in 2000, Prince Odysseus-Kimon born in 2004 and Prince Aristidis-Stavros born in 2008.
Marie-Chantal is the founder and creative director of Marie-Chantal, an international childrenswear brand founded in 2000. The couple are still together after 25 years.
Marie-Chantal’s younger sister Alexandra also grew up between Hong Kong, Paris and New York but unlike her sisters, she was born in Hong Kong.
She too married a prince the same year as her sister. On October 28, 1995, Alexandra married Prince Alexander von Furstenberg, the son of fashion designer Diana von Furstenberg and Prince Egon von Furstenberg. The royal lineage originates from southern Germany, modern-day Baden-Wurttemberg. The wedding took place at the Church of St Ignatius of Loyola in New York City.
In the same year, Alexandra joined her mother-in-law’s design team and during her 10 years there she served as creative director and later, director of image and Alexandra was instrumental in the relaunch of the iconic wrap dress.
The couple have two children, Princess Talita Natasha, born in 1999 and Prince Tassilo Egon Maximillian born in 2001. The couple, however, divorced in 2002.
After her divorce, Alexandra relocated to Los Angeles and started designing exclusively for the home creating the Alexandra von Furstenberg brand of modern furniture and home accessories.
In 2015, she married her long-time fiancé, architectural designer Dax Miller.
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