the mystery of the least handsome ex-son-in-law

It is much more than the man who married the Infanta Elena and the father of Froilan y Victoria Federica. Doña Elena is in fashion because she has a birthday and is on the cover of gossip magazine after having given an interview to her father’s biographer, the Frenchwoman Laurence Debray, who stands out in the portrait of her sister. Felipe VI her beauty and her equestrian athlete’s body. For Elena, her ex-husband does not exist. The biographer of Juan Carlos I does not ask her and she does not answer. He also doesn’t ask him how he gets along with his sister-in-law. Joy But he doesn’t have two children with her.

Elena does not name Marichalar

But despite the years that Victoria Federica’s mother has been separated from the father of her children, neither the Infanta nor Jaime de Marichalar have had a known partner. That is why we understand that the memory of the former Duke of Lugo is still there, anchored in the heart of his ex.

Marichalar does not evoke images of opulence, but of nobility. He decorates the only official love story of the king’s eldest daughter with the lifestyle of a strange character. Under that velvet cloak and the shadow of the triplex in the Salamanca neighborhood where he lives, hides a man who has turned his life into an ode to silences. The ugly and quirky former son-in-law has become the gentleman and classy former son-in-law. If Urgangarin was at the beginning the cannon husband, the piece of man that Cristina had fished out to make her four handsome children, now we realize the twists and turns that life takes. Marichalar has turned his silences into a work of art, his aesthetics into a catalog of modernities and his life into an impeccable know-how.

Born in Pamplona, ​​but carved by centuries of family history, Marichalar is not simply the ex-husband of Infanta Elena nor a wax doll removed from the museum in a wheelbarrow. He is a modern gentleman who has known how to navigate the intricate labyrinth of luxury and nobility like someone navigating a river of calm waters, without rushing, but with the certainty that he will always find a golden port.

The art of existing without haste

The triplex where Jaime resides is not just a home; It is a symbol of his legacy and his lifestyle. Located in the exclusive Salamanca neighborhood, this 735-square-meter vertical mansion is an architectural poem. In every corner, in every room and in every fireplace, there is a declaration of intent: someone lives here who understands that space is both to be inhabited and to be admired. They say that the interior designer Rosa Bernal left her soul in the decoration of this residence. Maybe he did, or maybe he had no choice when faced with the challenge of giving shape to a space that had to reflect the essence of Marichalar: discreet but imposing, classic but avant-garde. A kitchen that does not need a chef, a private pool that could appear in a Renaissance painting and a library that is contemplated rather than read. It’s all part of an ecosystem designed for the art of existing.

Jaime de Marichalar is a man from the luxury sector, they say. A definition as vague as it is fascinating. Perhaps because for him, luxury is not something that is acquired, but something that is breathed. From his time at Crédit Suisse First Boston to his collaboration with Loewe, Marichalar has cultivated a career that transcends the boundaries of conventional work. What exactly does it do? Maybe the only thing you need to do: be. And yet, this gentleman is not a mere spectator of his own life. If something characterizes Marichalar, it is his ability to remain relevant without losing that almost stoic stillness that so fascinates those who observe him. His stylized figure, his slow walk and his gaze that seems to scrutinize something beyond the obvious turn Jaime into a character in a novel that has not yet been completely written.

The fall and rise of an aristocrat

Not everything has been gold and velvet in Marichalar’s life. The cerebral ischemia he suffered in 2001 was a blow that marked him both physically and emotionally. From then on, his figure acquired a fragility that, far from subtracting from it, added an aura of melancholy that fits perfectly with the character. Every step he takes seems to carry the weight of history and every public appearance is a silent declaration that he is still here, intact in his essence.

The divorce with Infanta Elena was another chapter that the tabloids were responsible for magnifying. But Jaime faced it with that distant elegance that characterizes him. There were no shouts or public scandals, just a laconic statement and the retreat to his triplex, where he seems to have found the peace that public life denied him.

The heirs of the myth

His children, Froilán and Victoria Federica, are a reflection of the complexity of his legacy. Froilán, with his constant presence in the headlines, is the living image of the rebellious aristocrat, while Victoria Federica seems to be torn between bohemian life and protocol. In both cases, Jaime remains a silent but influential figure, a father who watches from the shadows, letting time and destiny sculpt his offspring.

Life as an endless triplex

Jaime de Marichalar is not just a man; It’s a metaphor. A metaphor of time stopped, of a nobility that reinvents itself and of a luxury that does not need to be explained. In his triplex in the Salamanca neighborhood, surrounded by books that may never be read and art that needs no interpretation, Marichalar has built a refuge that is much more than a residence. It is a monument to itself, a declaration that, even in a world where everything changes, there are things that remain unchanged.

With every public appearance, with every photograph that shows him impeccably dressed, Jaime reminds us that true luxury is not money or property, but the ability to turn life into a work of art. And in that sense, few do it like him. Thus, while the world accelerates, Jaime de Marichalar remains, like a knight from other times who refuses to be forgotten. He does not need titles or crowns to demonstrate his greatness. It is enough for him to cross a room with the same elegance with which he has crossed the most complex chapters of his life. Because, in the end, it is not the place where he lives that defines a man, but how he decides to live there. And Jaime, without a doubt, inhabits his triplex and his life with a mastery that only true artists possess.

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