In Regency Life:
As a nouveau riche heiress – whose father may well have made his money in trade with the Empire, plantation slavery or the industrialising North – Miss Hopkins will have an even more ostentatious wardrobe than an upper class girl. However, money alone was simply not enough to secure a place in society, and so the services of a titled chaperone (who might have fallen on hard times and needed some money) might be employed. In this case, Lady Devonport is bringing Miss Hopkins into society.
In Real Life:
Victoria is the Sales and Marketing Director for her family firm Hopkins Catering Equipment. She is a very successful northern girl who runs the company, which makes cooking equipment. Whilst working for the family firm, she sent herself to Leeds University after work hours and took a course in Business Studies. Victoria says that she has had a privileged upbringing, but was by no means spoilt. She has regular manicures, drives a sports car and her wardrobe is full of Gucci and Prada clothes. Victoria was engaged, but she called the whole thing off five days before the wedding. She says that the hardest thing about Regency life will be a chaperone curbing her tongue!
Interview: Find out what Miss Hopkins really thought of Regency House.
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