Tatler Takes Five

The British aristocrat— and producer, writer, director and public speaker—shares five of her favourite things

NO MATTER HOW DIGITAL I HAVE BECOME, I STILL WRITE MY SCHEDULE DOWN ON PAPER

1 HAMILTON

I recently saw Hamilton in LA and its Shakespearean dialogue really blew me away. Lin-manuel Miranda deserves all the success—what an incredible thing to have created. It is right that the show is now touring the world.

2 LACIE HARD DRIVES

It’s geeky, I know, but they’re currently my most treasured possessions, the things I would save first in a fire. Since I started shooting my new mini-film series, The Visionaries, on iphone, I download all the footage onto these hard drives. If I lost them I’d be inconsolable.

3 SMYTHSON FASHION DIARY

I can’t live without it. I keep each diary as a reminder of my life. Without that, I honestly can’t remember what I did yesterday, let alone last year.

4 ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

I’ve always loved Mcqueen but am more into the label now than ever before as I am executive producer of Mcqueen, a feature documentary directed by Ian Bonhôte that is set for global release in June. One dress I own, which I bought a few days after he passed away, is the same dress that they have on display in a glass case at the V&A Museum in London. I no longer wear it and have consigned it to my mother’s wardrobe. She and my three sisters have strict orders never to borrow it.

5 A HANDFUL OF DUST

This book by Evelyn Waugh is my favourite. I love Brideshead Revisited also, but A Handful of Dust is so unbelievably sad and so incredibly reflective of an extraordinary era in Britain. The movie adaptation was filmed at Carlton Towers, the home of my late grandfather (Miles Fitzalanhoward, the Duke of Norfolk) in Yorkshire. Grandpa was invited by the director to be an extra; he stood in as a gardener who tips his cap when the character played by Anjelica Huston lands her plane on the driveway of the house.