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Patty Hearst's daughter becomes lingerie model
Terry Kirby30 Jul 2008
The supermodel daughter of kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst has become the new face of lingerie brand Myla.
While Patty Hearst became famous for posing with an assault rifle after joining her captors, US guerrilla group the Symbionese Liberation Army, her 23-year-old daughter Lydia will now be posing in a range of retro-style satin and silk lingerie in the autumn-winter collection for Myla.
Lydia Hearst's first cover shoot was with Stephen Meisel in April 2004 for Italian Vogue and since then she has worked with some of the world's greatest photographers, including Mario Testino, Mark Abrams and Terry Richardson.
Hearst recently triumphed at this year's "Fashion Oscars" - the Michael Awards - winning this year's Supermodel Of The Year award.
In 1974 her mother, then aged 19,was kidnapped by the Left-wing SLA from her home in Berkeley, California. The initial aim of exchanging her for jailed members of the group and a deal to distribute food by the Hearst family to poor people in California both failed and after several months in captivity, Hearst shocked her wealthy family when she eventually joined her captors to help further their cause.
She adopted the name Tania and was photographed with a rifle for an SLA poster, which became a famous image of the 1970s.
Hearst was eventually arrested with other SLA members having taken part in a bank robbery, and was jailed for almost two years despite her defence that she had been brainwashed by her captors. Her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter and she later married her former bodyguard Bernard Shaw. She was eventually given a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on the last day of his presidency in 2001.
Her great-grandfather William Randolph Hearst was the inspiration for Orson Wells's classic film Citizen Kane. He created the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world which at its peak had 30 publications across the US. He was twice elected to the House of Representatives but failed to become senator for New York.
Myla was founded by two former Tesco executives in 1999, with a shop in Notting Hill. In the first year of its launch, its products featured in Vogue almost every month. Within weeks of opening it had a concession in Selfridges. Now worth an estimated £25 million, it was sold in 2005 to a group of investors led by entrepreneur brothers Daniel and Leo Gestetner. The brand is opening two more stores in America to add to its sole outlet in New York and 10 branches in Britain and Ireland.
