EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Royal overhaul for hooligans’ top criminal, Stone Island, as Cassius Taylor is hired to help transform brand’s image

Lady Helen Taylor was a paid ambassador and muse of Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani for almost twenty years. Now her youngest son has been hired to help transform the image of a very different clothing label.

I can announce that Cassius Taylor has been recruited by Stone Island, the brand loved by football hooligans.

“I’ve been working with Stone Island on a rebrand for the label,” he tells me at a party in Mayfair.

It’s a fascinating collaboration. Founded in Ravarino in 1982, Stone Island developed a cult-like following among British football supporters who saw its clothing on rival fans when their teams played Italian teams.

The associations with hooliganism were reinforced on the big screen when the outfits were worn by characters in violent films such as Green Street and The Football Factory. More recently, it has become fashionable among American rappers, including Jay-Z and Drake.

Cassius, 27, educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and Goldsmiths, University of London, is a son of Lady Helen and her husband, the art dealer Timothy Taylor. His grandfather is the Duke of Kent, a first cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth, and his great-great-grandfather was George V.

Cassius came to know Stone Island through his work as a DJ. He tells me: ‘I gave their team input on the British music scene.’

In the past he has said: ‘I always knew that, because of my upbringing, I would somehow end up in the creative industry, just like everyone else in my family.’

Cassius’ mother admitted that she grew tired of wearing only Armani’s muted designs to public events. “There is a limit to the number of navy blue jackets and white shirts you can wear in a year,” she once noted.

Maybe he can give his grandmother, the Duchess of Kent, some Stone Island stuff? The 91-year-old music teacher once revealed that she loved rap music, especially American star Eminem.

Queen of Mean has been laughed at!

The Weakest Link’s former Queen of Mean, Anne Robinson, has set her sights on visitors to the Cotswolds, where she lives.

“I’ve never seen a tourist do anything other than browse – they never buy,” says 79-year-old Robinson, who says her way was blocked by “three very large Germans” at her local delicatessen in Burford, Oxfordshire. ‘I walked past one daughter and the mother, while the other daughter leaned over the cheese display and took pictures.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you bought some cheese instead of just photographing it,” I asked. “I already bought it,” she said. ‘Bought, bought,’ I replied.’ That job in tourism PR can wait, Anne…

Formula 1 heiress Petra Ecclestone was criticized for allowing her 11-year-old daughter, Lavinia, to compete in the Ideal Miss California & West Coast beauty pageant.

Her husband, Sam Palmer, a real estate agent, insists the competition was a sophisticated affair.

“I expected a lot of idiots who couldn’t really talk, and it was the exact opposite,” he says. ‘One of them, who was 17, told me how she enjoyed debating at school. It was lovely to have a conversation.’

Mother pride for Freya and orphan cub

Model Freya Aspinall calls herself a ‘Lion mama’ and she’s clearly not afraid to give her cubs some motherly affection.

Freya, 20, shared a video of herself cuddling Zemo, a lion cub, at her father Damian’s wildlife park in Kent.

“Zemo’s mother died in our shelter when he was just three days old, so we have to hand-raise him and his sister Zala,” she says.

‘I was able to develop a beautiful, completely natural bond with him.’

Meanwhile, Freya’s mother, actress Donna Air, isn’t concerned about her close relationship with wild animals. “They’re more afraid of her,” she tells me.

The £1.2million murder of disco star Sophie

Life, the old saying goes, begins at age 40. And then, at the age of 44, it goes into joyful, crazy overdrive – that is, if you’re Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who gave a breathtaking performance at the Baftas this week.

And why wouldn’t she? The singer reprized Murder On The Dancefloor, her 2001 hit that is now delighting a new generation of fans, thanks to its use in the climactic scenes of Saltburn, the second film directed by Oscar winner Emerald Fennell.

Sophie can afford to keep the party going: newly published figures show her live music company DV Touring raked in £1.2 million last year and made a profit of £342,000 – a figure likely to be dwarfed by 2024.

He has to survive on £144,649 a year as Leader of the Opposition, but Sir Keir Starmer didn’t have to part with a penny when he scored a pair of tickets to see his beloved Arsenal play at West Ham a few weeks ago. .

Not only were the tickets free – courtesy of West Ham, whose main shareholders include publisher David Sullivan and Vanessa Gold, head of the Ann Summers sex shop chain – but so was the ‘pre-match hospitality’ in the Chairman’s Lounge .

Starmer estimates in the membership register of financial interests that the prank would have cost him £2,000 if he had had to cough up. A victory by any reckoning.

The fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, which currently houses the statue of an African revolutionary who urged his followers to kill whites, should instead be used to honor the late actor Lord Olivier, says Hollywood villain Steven Berkoff.

“I imagine a statue of Laurence Oliver sitting on his prancing horse, as he did in his brilliant film of Henry V,” says Berkoff. ‘Olivier was not only praised for his acting, but taught many generations of young people the meaning and value of Shakespeare’s language. Moreover, his energy and bravado eventually convinced a reluctant government to build a national theater.’