Daisy Hoppen and Vincent Gilbert’s encounter reads like a Richard Curtis movie script. Our newly single British heroine runs her own fashion PR agency and had just moved into a north London flat overlooking Highbury Stadium when the pandemic hit. Disappointed that her Carrie Bradshaw-inspired “cocktails and dates” dream was on hold, and determined not to let Covid get her down, she decided to do a few laps in the park every morning before going to work. Meanwhile, our hero, Vincent Gilbert, a 6-foot-4 Frenchman and cybersecurity expert, completes the daily dawn circuit of the same park.
Every morning at 7 15, they run past each other. A few weeks later, Vincent smiled as Daisy jogged past. She thought he was cute, if a little eccentric. “I thought he was just being nice, or he was gay, or he got married without a wedding ring,” she recalls. One morning in August 15, Vincent stopped Daisy, introduced himself, and told her she was wearing the wrong sneakers. (They’re New Balance’s non-performance sneakers, but the Daisy is more comfortable running doors than marathons at fashion shows for clients like Simone Rocha, Molly Goddard, and Rejina Pyo.)
They struck up a chat and ended up having a couple of coffee dates, as anything more glamorous was prohibited due to social distancing rules in the UK. “It was a time when you couldn’t even hug your family, so the thought of even sitting on a park bench — felt so Pride and Prejudice ,” Daisy recalled. Another vintage element? Vincent is a cybersecurity geek with no digital footprint. “There was no way to track him digitally, not a single social media account,” Daisy said. “I didn’t know anything about him until we started meeting in person and subsequently exchanging phone numbers.”
They dated for a few months until a proposal was made over the Easter weekend, while the pair enjoyed a good time with friends in Bath. “I was eating Magnum ice cream and complaining that I didn’t want to walk up the hill, and then I looked down and saw him on one knee speaking French,” Daisy said. “It was a huge surprise.” Gilbert consulted Hoban’s sister, Mimi, director of jewelery and watches at Dover Street Market, before proposing and presented Daisy with a 15th Century, Rose Cut Diamond William Welstead Ring. “I’ve always thought William’s jewelry was impeccable,” says Daisy. “Amazing. I feel really, really, really happy.”
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