THE ARISTO GLUMS!
IT’S an extraordinary picture: two blue-blooded sets of sisters, a viscountess and Princess Diana’s niece all together on the front row at Dolce & Gabbana’s show at Milan Fashion Week yesterday. Between them, they boast a castle, several vast estates, not
THE MANNERS SISTERS
BLUE BLOODLINE: Lady Violet, 24, Lady Alice, 22, and Lady Eliza Manners, 20, are the daughters of the 11th Duke of Rutland and his wife, Emma.
The couple are separated, but still live together with their new partners at the family seat, Belvoir Castle — a 356-room castle on a 16,000-acre estate in Leicestershire. The ‘Bad Manners’ sisters prefer to base themselves in the Capital at the family’s £2 million townhouse in Fulham, which has become party central — so much so that it was once nicknamed ‘The Pussy Palace’.
All three love to party, but Violet insists they all have a strong work ethic: ‘I’ve never missed a day of work. Life is about getting the balance right.’
FASHION PEDIGREE: Violet was employed at My Beautiful City, a creative agency in Soho, but recently started her own marketing and brand-strategy consultancy. As a model, she has appeared in Tatler and walked the catwalk for Dolce & Gabbana. She posts regularly for her 11,600 Instagram followers, including revealing shots in changing rooms or in bikinis — and even in the lavatory.
Alice attended the Conde Nast College of Fashion and Design is a model, stylist and personal shopper at Selfridges and writes a fashion column for a newspaper. She is signed to Leni’s Models agency, and has featured in campaigns for Bare Minerals make-up and designers Matthew Williamson, Ralph Lauren and Dolce & Gabbana.
Lady Eliza is an aspiring singer. Her family urged her to enter the television talent show The Voice, but she refused. She once had a tattoo in honour of one of the staff at Belvoir and was set to study drama at the renowned Lee Strasberg Institute in New York, where she hoped to follow in the footsteps of her idol Elizabeth Taylor. Her circusthemed 18th birthday party featured in Tatler.
SIGNIFICANT OTHERS: Violet is thought to be single, Alice is dating Otis Ferry, son of Bryan, and Eliza was recently named one of Britain’s most eligible singletons by Tatler.
LADY KITTY SPENCER, 27
BLUE BLOODLINE: Lady Kitty is the eldest daughter of Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, and his first wife, Victoria Lockwood. She is the niece of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
FASHION PEDIGREE: Kitty is a successful model who spent the start of this month in New York for fashion week attending the Bottega Veneta show alongside Princess Beatrice. Earlier yesterday, she walked the catwalk for Dolce & Gabbana in a long, pale-blue gown and tiara. She is the star of their spring advertising campaign.
Kitty shot to public attention when she attended the 2011 wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, along with her bombshell sisters. She is on warm terms with her cousins William and Harry, but is not in their inner circle.
Her modelling career was launched via a sensational Tatler cover in which she looked like a blue-blooded Brigitte Bardot. She is represented by Paula Karaiskos at Storm model agency, which discovered Kate Moss.
Kitty forever posts pictures of herself at parties with pals including pop star Pixie Lott and is good friends with the Manners girls.
‘ No creme brulee before St Tropez’ is one of her tongue-incheek maxims to her 49,000 Instagram followers, neatly skewering the downmarket TOWIE mantra ‘No carbs before Marbs’.
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: She was devastated when her four-year romance with 45-year-old divorced property tycoon Niccolo Barattieri di San Pietro ended last summer.
EMMA THYNN, 31
BLUE BLOODLINE: Emma, Viscountess Weymouth, is the daughter of society beauty Suzanna McQuiston, who built up a fortune in the London property market, and Lade Jadesimi, a wealthy Oxfordeducated Nigerian businessman. Emma is married to Ceawlin, Viscount Weymouth, who will become the Marquess of Bath when his father Alexander dies.
FASHION PEDIGREE: Emma runs a lifestyle blog, offering recipes for her favourite rose and lychee martini, and has fostered friendships with the fashion world which led to her being cast in a Dolce & Gabbana ad campaign last year. She is also an ambassador for Fiorucci.
Sadly, she is mostly known for the explosive family row that followed her engagement to Ceawlin. His mother was barred from attending the wedding after she questioned why her son would damage the family’s 400- year bloodline by marrying a mixed-race woman.
Lord Bath refused to attend the wedding after Ceawlin took over the running of the ancestral family home, Longleat, and removed some of the many racy murals painted by his artist father.
The flamboyant Lord Bath is infamous for the number of relationships he has had during his marriage with women he calls his ‘wifelets’.
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Ceawlin, 43, a wild sprig of the aristocracy. He was sent to the local comprehensive by his Old Etonian father, who thought a spot of social equality would do the boy some good.
However, his son and heir’s first act of rebellion was to dip into his trust fund and pay to send himself to boarding school instead.
He and Emma have two sons, John, born in 2014 and Henry, born in 2016. The younger boy is the first member of the British aristocracy to have been born by surrogacy, using one of his mother’s eggs and his father’s sperm. Emma had been warned that bearing another child could kill her.
MONCREIFFE SISTERS
BLUE BLOODLINE: Meet high- class Highlanders Idina, 25, Eliza, 23, Alexandra, 21, and Lily, 19. They are the daughters of the kiltwearing Hon Peregrine Moncreiffe and his wife, the artist Miranda Fox-Pitt, and were brought up on the family’s Scottish estate, Easter Moncreiffe in Perthshire — known affectionately as Fawlty Towers.
Their great-great-grandmother was the suffragette Muriel, Countess de la Warr.
FASHION PEDIGREE: Idina and Alexandra have modelled for Dolce and Gabbana, Gucci, Burberry and Valentino. Idina has appeared in Vogue and modelled for Vivienne Westwood and Simone Rocha. Alexandra has been a Tatler cover girl and modelled for Lanvin, Diesel and Fred Perry.
The girls were educated at Roman Catholic boarding school Ampleforth in North Yorkshire, and rumours suggest a penchant for snogging each other’s boyfriends. But there is no tension between them — they are said to be good at sharing thanks to their ‘free love’ upbringing.
Not just party girls, Idina and Alexandra have carried out charity work and volunteered at Mother Teresa’s mission in Calcutta.
Alexandra has studied ‘nutrition and holistic healing’ while Idina — softly spoken and outdoorsy — has previously described herself as ‘an artist and poet who writes mainly about nature’. She studied at Central St Martin’s.
Eliza spent the end of last year travelling around India and most recently posted pictures partying in South Africa.
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: The sisters are all thought to be single, although Idina was once considered as potential bride for Prince Harry.