Diplomat's Wife Hopes For Informal Parties

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28824, 19 February 1959, Page 2

Diplomat's Wife Hopes For Informal Parties

Mrs Arma Hagglof has one chief aim as the new "first day" of London's Diplomatic Corps—to take some of the stuffiness out of the formal diplomatic parties at the Court of St James, says a London correspondent. \ Her method will be to hold more small dinner parties and at other times to split her guests into groups of four or six at < different tables. She will also "mix” her guests i as much as possible. Experience has taught her that it is not always people of similar background and interests who get along best together and that it helps to invite some people from outside the diplomatic circle. Break With Tradition As a break with embassy tradition, she may even hold official parties at her private home, a showpiece Adam house in Portland place, a stone's throw from bustling Oxford circus. Mrs Hagglof,' a glamorous brunette, is the wife of the Swedish Ambassador, Mr Gunnar Hagglof. Her husband has now become the doyen of the - 800 foreign diplomats in London because the Norwegian Ambassador. Mr Preben Prebensen, has taken a new appointment in Rome. During the last 10 years in London, Mrs Hagglof has held and attended hundreds of diplomatic parties; she has also been a hostess in Brussels and Moscow where her husband was previously Ambassador. Now her social programme will be more crowded than ever.

The Hagglofs are a handsome couple who find much pleasure

in each other’s company. He is an historian, novelist, and skilled bridge player; she is attractive, gay and extremely fashionconscious. They have a son. Axel, at school in Sweden. -The Swedish Ambassador's wife is a half-American, Italian-born countess and on, of London’s best-dressed women. But she does not shop at London’s top fashion houses; she goes to a little dressmaker it Italy. She loves travel and takes aeroplanes like others take taxis. During the Hungarian revolution she flew to organise welfare work for refugees.