Rena Kirdar (born 1969) is an Iraqi socialite.

Biography

Kirdar was born in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

, 1969. She spent part of her childhood in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

. Her father,

Iraqi Turkmen The Iraqi Turkmens (also spelled as Turkoman and Turcoman; tr, Irak Türkmenleri), also referred to as Iraqi Turks, Turkish-Iraqis, the Turkish minority in Iraq, and the Iraqi-Turkish minority ( ar, تركمان العراق; tr, Irak Türkleri ...

billionaire Nemir A. Kirdar, founded the merchant bank Investcorp in the 1980s, which later acquired

Gucci Gucci (, ; ) is an Italian high-end luxury fashion house based in Florence, Italy. Its product lines include handbags, ready-to-wear, footwear, accessories, and home decoration; and it licenses its name and branding to Coty, Inc. for fragran ...

, Tiffany & Co. and

Saks Fifth Avenue Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; colloquially Saks) is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street shopping district of Washington ...

. Kirdar completed an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, later earning a master's degree in international affairs from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and an MBA from Cambridge University's Judge Business School. She moved from

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1991, and purchased

Sean Combs Sean Combs (born Sean John Combs; November 4, 1969), also known by his stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Puffy, or Diddy, is an American rapper, actor, record producer, and record executive. Born in New York City, he worked as a talent directo ...

' townhouse on

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

. As a member of the

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

social scene, Kirdar threw "some of the most lavish and unforgettable costume parties" of the 1990s, including

Sloan-Kettering Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...

's Valentine's Day Ball,

New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company' ...

's Dance with the Dancers Gala, and events for the Boys' Club of New York,

, and Bruno Magli. In 2002, she published ''Be My Guest'', a detailed photographic diary of her most successful themed events, with tips on invitations, table settings, recipes, cocktails, decorations, and music.

Personal life

Rena married Saudi businessman Sami Sindi in 1991, and they had two daughters. They divorced in 2005 and Kirdar moved back to London. She married Lebanese financier Makram Abboud in London in June 2012.Rena Sindi Fetes Marriage at The Four Seasons in Beirut
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Bibliography

* ''Be My Guest: Theme Party Savoir-Faire'' (2002)

References

External links

*
Rena Kirdar Sindi
at Facebook {{DEFAULTSORT:Sindi, Rena Kirdar Living people 1969 births Writers from Baghdad Iraqi Turkmen people Iraqi socialites Iraqi writers Iraqi women writers Iraqi artists Iraqi emigrants to the United Kingdom Alumni of the University of Oxford School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University alumni