SIGNATURE STYLE
Chatsworth House showcases the Cavendish family’s finest sartorial heirlooms
From the dynamic Tudor businesswoman Bess of Hardwick through to the supermodel and designer Stella Tennant, via Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the history of the Cavendishes is rich in exceptional women. Now, this feminine legacy is being celebrated in ‘House Style’, an enthralling new exhibition at Chatsworth House, the family’s Derbyshire seat.
The inspiration of the Countess of Burlington – a former model who has worked as a fashion stylist for Bazaar – ‘House Style’ tells the stories of these women’s lives through the medium of their dress.
Spanning five centuries and some 150 items, the show ranges from Bess’ silver belt buckle to Georgiana’s dainty bejewelled ‘chatelaine’ ornament (and her staggering dress bills), Debo Devonshire’s Elvis shoes and rubber-chicken handbag, and the coronation robes worn by several generations of Duchesses to state occasions.
A simple locket sums up the tragedy of Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy, sister to JFK, who defied her staunchly Catholic family to marry William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, only to lose him on active service just months after their wedding in 1944; she died in a plane crash four years later. Adele Astaire, the Broadway star and sister of Fred, who married the 9th Duke’s younger son Lord Charles Cavendish in 1932, is represented by her tailored riding breeches, and an amateur home movie that
shows her dancing – albeit in a suitably aristocratic tweed skirt.
And other less well-known – though no less fascinating – women emerge from the shadows of the past: such as the fun-loving Louise Cavendish, known as the ‘Double Duchess’ (she was previously the Duchess of Manchester) who is immortalised here by an extraordinarily ornate costume of green and gold shot-silk gauze with a turquoise train, designed by Worth. In this, and an ornate tiara, which has been specially recreated for the exhibition, she dazzled 700 assembled royalty and aristocracy as the hostess of the 1897 Devonshire House Ball. (The barbaric gorgeousness of this ensemble provides a piquant contrast with a demure ruffled shepherdess costume owned by her more sedate successor, Duchess Evelyn…)
But to present this show as exclusively female-focused is to do the male Cavendishes an injustice; for they were similarly modish.
The 6th Duke built up an extraordinary collection of fashion books, while the 11th Duke, who married Debo, had a unique and iconoclastic approach to matters sartorial, as can be seen from the much-mended tapestry slippers that became his trademark, and that his friend, the designer Hubert de Givenchy, suggested should be displayed. There is also a collection of monochrome slogan jumpers he designed, bearing provocative phrases such as ‘Never Marry a Mitford’ and ‘All Passion Spent’.
‘His jerseys are works of art,’ enthuses Patrick Kinmonth, the creative director responsible for the staging of ‘House Style’. ‘He thought he was making a visual joke, but they’re a very strong statement.’ So, too, were his 40 or so silk nightshirts, all identical, exquisitely made and bearing the ducal crest. ‘There’s a mental efficiency about it,’ points out Kinmonth. ‘He’s found the perfect thing to wear to bed, and he doesn’t have to think about it ever again.’
The contemporary outfits on display are similarly intriguing. Including as they do a McQueen dress and a Dior helmet modelled by Stella Tennant, a pair of white PVC Pierre Hardy boots the Countess wore to her wedding, and a tiny bespoke Erdem dress in which her daughter Nell (now aged four) was christened, they provide ample proof, if it were needed, that the Devonshires’ reputation for elegance is in safe hands.
‘House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth’ is at
Chatsworth House (www.chatsworth.org) from 25 March to 22 October.