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Stella Tennant, the flawless aristocratic model and the inspiration of designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Gianni Versace, died suddenly Tuesday, five days after her 50th birthday.
His death was announced in a statement from his family. The cause of death was not given. Police reports did not identify any suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, according to the BBC.
Granddaughter of Andrew Cavendish, the 11th Duke of Devonshire and Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, the youngest of the Mitford sisters, Mrs Tennant descended directly from Bess of Hardwick, builder of the opulent Elizabethan mansion, Hardwick Hall, and formerly considered to be the richest woman in England.
Ms. Tennant has carried her rarefied heritage lightly throughout her three decades of the fashion race, in which she has walked the catwalks of most of the top fashion designers; has been featured in advertising campaigns for almost all major labels; appeared on dozens of magazine covers; and has worked with a comprehensive roster of the world’s elite photographers, editors, makeup artists and stylists.
Along with Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, Ms Tennant was chosen to represent English fashion at the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony. In the late 1990s, Karl Lagerfeld signed her to an exclusive deal as a face. by Chanel. In doing so, Mr. Lagerfeld noted Ms. Tennant’s very English resemblance to the incomparably Gallic founder of the legendary house.
It was a whimsical claim in every way, given that Coco Chanel was short and better known for her style than her looks, while Ms. Tennant was nearly six feet tall, had perfectly regular features, and as an adult maintained the Her grandmother’s “limpid blue eyes”. Deborah Devonshire first noted in a letter to Anglo-Irish writer Patrick Leigh Fermor when Ms Tennant was wearing diapers.
What the two women had in common, however, was an element of androgyny. Ms. Tennant’s brushed haircut, along with her cool boyish (and a punk septum piercing), caught the attention of photographer Steven Meisel in the early 1990s. After arriving at a casting call the photographer sent for strangers, Ms. Tennant found her face on the cover of Italian Vogue.
She quickly found favor with designers from all walks of life, from New York Indies to renowned European designers.
“Steven Meisel sent Stella to visit my design studio and I immediately picked her on my Spring 1994 show as an aristocratic punk princess,” said designer Anna Sui. “She was so elegant and had the beauty and androgyny of an Elizabeth Peyton design. Plus, there was that chic accent and the nose ring challenge.
Ms. Tennant’s casual ease with duality – especially class and gender – has kept her in demand throughout the decades with designers like Valentino Garavani, Alber Elbaz, Giorgio Armani, Marc Jacobs and Gianni Versace (including the family, in a statement Tuesday, called their “muse” of the late designer). While they admired her beauty, the designers also relied on her ability to embody multiple fashion archetypes.
“She looked just as beautiful in a tuxedo or a chiffon dress,” said Alber Elbaz, who picked Ms. Tennant to star in his first ad campaign for Yves Saint Laurent when he took on design responsibilities there. low in 1998 (and shortly after Ms. Tennant gave birth to her first child).
“She wasn’t really a model,” he added. “She was a woman, a mother, English, aristocratic but with a heart of gold.
Stella Tennant was born in London on December 17, 1970, the youngest of three children of Lady Emma Cavendish and the Hon. Tobias William Tennant, son of second Baron Glenconner, himself Colin Tennant’s younger half-brother, Princess Margaret’s favorite rakehell and the force behind the development of the Caribbean island of Mustique.
Raised on her family’s 1,500 acre sheep farm in the Scottish Borders, she attended St. Leonards School in St. Andrews and later Marlborough College in the English countryside. She was still a student at the Winchester School of Art when she caught the attention of fashion writer Plum Sykes at British Vogue. When casting for a Steven Meisel shoot for a December 1993 issue of Vogue UK titled “Anglo-Saxon Attitude”, she was already 23 years old.
However, his detachment and relative maturity have served him well in a company renowned for its lightness and extravagance of temperament struck with helium.
“As soon as someone mentioned her name, the reaction has always been, ‘I want her on my show,’” Elbaz said. When asked why, he replied, “At the time when you are most mad and panicked, she is the one who calms you down.
And, while she was no stranger to greatness in clothing (not all children, after all, are free to play dress-up in the wardrobes of Chatsworth, the Derbyshire seat of the Dukes of Devonshire), she had an elegance of mind and attitude. it was innate, according to Pierpaolo Piccioli, the creator of Valentino.
Just before the world went on lockdown last winter, Mr Piccioli picked Ms Tennant for the coveted top spot on his fashion show. It would be his last.
“When she came for her fittings, she was so nice to everyone – not just me, but all the seamstresses, everyone,” Piccioli wrote in an email. “What she showed is that elegance is not just about physical attributes or walk, but something inside. She had a grace impossible to copy or explain.
She is survived by her husband, David Lasnet, photographer and osteopath from whom she separated in August after 21 years of marriage, and four children, Iris, Jasmine, Cecily and Marcel.
Vanessa Friedman contributed to additional reports.
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