I have just come back from a lovely week in France where we travelled for a friend’s wedding. We were lucky enough to visit Chantilly, and there was a tiny landmark in the nearby forest that I could not resist visiting, as it played a pivotal role in one of my most favourite films…

In the forest of Chantilly, you will find a group of ponds created in the 13th century by monks at Chaalis Abbey for fish. Later on, a tiny castle was built upon their banks.

It became a hunting lodge during the 18th century. In the 19th century, it was given the name the Castle of the White Queen, or the Château de la Reine Blanche.

The tiny château became famous in 1957 when it was used in the movie Funny Face. It stars Audrey Hepburn as a young bookshop worker, spotted when fashion photographer Fred Astaire and magazine editor Kay Thompson waltz into her shop and take it over for a shoot. But of course, Hepburn is the face they have been looking for, and she is whisked away to Paris by them both to become the new face of a fashion campaign.

Astaire photographs Hepburn, who really only wants to visit Paris to talk to philosophers in Montmartre, all over the city. But what really steals the show is him photographing her in front of this castle, where the two of them then fall in love and sing and dance in its grounds.

In 2017, parts of the château were restored with the involvement of Hubert de Givenchy and Philippe de Venet in memory of Hepburn. The fashion house Givenchy created all of her Funny Face costumes, as well as her iconic little black dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.