Who

Fashion designer-slash-social fixture Charlotte Ronson is the daughter of socialite Ann Dexter-Jones and the sibling of DJs/social scenesters Mark and Samantha Ronson.

Backstory

Charlotte was born in London, the daughter of social butterfly Ann Dexter and real estate developer Laurence Ronson, a well-connected '70s scenemaker who partied with the likes of David Bowie and Mick Jagger. Charlotte's parents divorced when she was five, and her mother remarried Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones. The family soon decamped to New York and settled in at the San Remo on Central Park West, and Charlotte enrolled at the Upper East Side prep school Nightingale-Bamford.

After graduating from NYU—she was the first member of her immediate family to earn a college degree—Charlotte set her sights on fashion design and succeeded effortlessly thanks to her abundance of family connections. Several stores picked up her C. Ronson clothing line shortly after its 2000 debut; by 2002, she had a store of her own on Elizabeth Street in Nolita and was generating more than $2 million a year with her range of casual tops and skirts. In 2003, she inked a licensing pact with hip-hop mogul Damon Dash, a deal that promised to give her additional exposure and distribution. (Dash later signed her fraternal twin sister, Samantha, to his Roc-a-Fella music label.)

Alas, the business union fell apart after a couple of years (right around the time Dash decided to push the clothing line founded by his now-wife, Rachel Roy), and in 2005 Charlotte teamed up with the Japanese company Sanei. A dozen C. Ronson stores have since opened in Asia, but she's expanded stateside as well: In 2006 she moved her boutique to larger digs on Mulberry, where in addition to her eponymous line of girly, vintagey sportswear, she carries jewelry by pal and fellow nepotism beneficiary Courtney Wagner (daughter of Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood) and swimwear by her Nightingale classmate (and Seinfeld ex) Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, with whom she's also designing a resort/swimwear range, Made With Love. Lately, Ronson's been going mass-market: She's signed a deal to do a line for J.C. Penney, and her Urban Outfitters collaboration, Play by C. Ronson, hit stores in June '08.

On the side

As if she needs any more money or exposure, Charlotte is the latest face of Sebastian haircare.

Family ties

As well as siblings Mark (whose album Version was inescapable during the summer of '07) and Samantha (who may be best known these days for her exploits with Lindsay Lohan), Charlotte has a half-brother and half-sister: Alex Dexter-Jones and Annabelle Dexter-Jones. The latter is a contributor to Teen Vogue, an aspiring scenester, and models her sister's clothes.

Personal

Charlotte lives near Union Square and is single. One of her ex-boyfriends is Butch Ural, the club promoter who was formerly partners with Mike Satsky in the Hamptons club Star Room.

No joke

Ronson made the gossip pages in 1999 when she nearly killed Hollywood mega-agent Patrick Whitesell with his own car. Mistaking the gas pedal for the brake, she pinned her pal against the wall of his garage and he needed 100 stitches afterward. No wonder: She told a reporter that she only passed her driving test in 2007.