Changemakers from across fashion, media and culture – as well as HELLO! - joined Livia Giuggioli Firth for an intimate dinner to celebrate nature and her new venture into sustainable farming.
The activist, along with Net-a-Porter co-founder Carmen Busquets and luxury florist Whitney Hawkings, hosted the Growing Stories event at chic 1 Hotel Mayfair in London, where food, fashion and flowers took centre stage.
Among the guests were model and climate activist Arizona Muse, designer Daniella Helayel, new Net-a-Porter CEO Heather Kaminetsky and Tania Fares, founder of Fashion Trust Arabia, who sipped cocktails on an outdoor terrace before sitting down at a table decked with fresh vegetables and pots of herbs, and decorated with seasonal stems from Whitney’s company FLOWERBX, a direct-from-the-farm delivery service with zero-waste packaging.
© Sam Simpson/Dave Benett/Getty ImagesThe menu was a showcase of produce from Quintosapore, the farm Livia runs in Umbria with her twin brothers Alessandro and Nicola using biomimicry principles, which imitate nature's methods of producing food without the need for chemicals. Their soil-to-fork products recently went on sale in Selfridges.
Guests tucked into dishes including pumpkin and truffle soup, burrata with hand-harvested courgettes preserved in the farm’s award-winning extra virgin olive oil and mini corn tacos with smoked zucchini, aubergines, peppers and Umbrian Leccino olives, followed by lemon and peach gelato.
© Sam Simpson/Dave Benett/Getty Images''I wanted to do a dinner in London to celebrate this crazy new life that we have. To be surrounded by love and joy and hope and stories that we want to seed and grow – that is what it’s all about,'' said Livia, who wore a colourful floral print maxi dress from JJ Martin for the occasion.
In an exclusive interview with Hello! last month, Livia, 55, told how she and her ex-husband, actor Colin Firth and their sons Luca, 24, and Matteo, 22, had found a passion for growing vegetables when they spent the Covid-19 lockdown at the farm – an experience the Bridget Jones star has described as ''one of the most exciting adventures of my life''.
© Sam Simpson/Dave Benett/Getty ImagesLivia's brothers turned their hobby into a business, and she joined them last year after the collapse of her sustainable fashion consultancy Eco-Age.
''When we lost Eco-Age, Quintosapore became my therapy, and I started to come here every day," she said.
