Why I named my designer label after Lord Lucan
The Lucan name is forever tainted by a brutal society murder. Yet that hasn’t stopped the infamous Earl’s daughter-in-law reclaiming it for a glamorous fashion line
The 8th Countess of Lucan greets me in the elegant hallway of the mansion block apartment she shares with her husband, George, and their two-year- old daughter, Daphne, in London’s leafy St John’s Wood.
The latest samples from her country sports- inspired clothing brand have arrived. Tweed coats in fruity cocktail colours and tailored jackets with sharp, Forties- style shoulders hang from a clothes rail, ready to be photographed. A swashbuckling, powdery-blue tweed coat with a nipped-in waist, and a take on a Norfolk jacket in a punchy shade of chartreuse, catch my eye.
Slipping a hand inside each piece, I find a satin lining and a label, ‘Lucan’.
‘Well? What do you think?’ asks AnneSofie, or Fie as she likes to be called, flashing sapphire-blue eyes and doing a perfect mannequin twirl in another tweed jacket. A sensible knee-length tube skirt shows off unmistakably aristocratic slender calves and racy, mid-heel Louboutins.
There’s no avoiding the question. I ask her if she feels the decision to forge a 21st- century fashion label from the same ancient, Anglo-Irish aristocratic family name so inextricably linked to a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare is brave.
After all, this is the same Lucan — as in the 7th earl of Lucan, father of her husband — who vanished without trace in November 1974, following the murder of the family nanny. ‘I think that’s more the
Saying “please” doesn’t mean I am waiting for permission COMEDIAN AMY POEHLER
older generation. I love the name Lucan,’ she shoots back, admitting the initial suggestion that the brand be called ‘ Lady Lucan’ was shelved because it would have left no room for menswear.
She reminds me that, in the fashion world, it is commonplace to call a brand after one’s own name. And how it was impossible even to reserve a restaurant table in her Danish maiden name — Foghsgaard — because no one could pronounce it. Besides, it won’t be the first fashion house to have skeletons in the closet.
Which is true. From Coco Chanel’s dalliance with an SS officer, to Gianni Versace’s murder in Miami, fashion has long gone hand-in-hand with — and even thrived on — scandal.
As for her husband, George Bingham, an investment banker and the 8th Lord Lucan, whose life has been dogged by events that occurred when he was seven years old, Fie tells me he is very proud of her use of the family name. Together, they plan to turn it into a global, luxury fashion business — a fresh start for the Lucan heritage.
‘The clothes are so bold and adventurous, creative and entrepreneurial,’ says George. ‘It’s such a happy change from all the darker tones the name had assumed in recent decades.’
Fie, 40, an heiress in her own right, met George at a black-tie Viking-themed party in 2003. They dated briefly, before he broke it off — possibly because of the age gap (she is some ten years his junior).
Years later, they met up again. ‘I always had a soft spot for George because he’s very, very kind,’ says Fie. ‘He’s bright and funny, too, but it was his kindness that was an extremely important character trait. People have to be kind.’
DID she know about the Lucan mystery before she met George? ‘No. I was born in Denmark and that was very much a story of Britain in the Seventies and Eighties.’
Few people here are unaware of the case, however. On the night of November 7, 1974, as George and his two sisters slept upstairs, their nanny, 29-year- old Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in the basement of the family home in Mayfair. It was assumed that George’s father was the murderer, having mistaken the nanny for his wife in the dark.
The killer also attacked Lady Lucan — George’s mother — with bandaged lead piping, but she managed to escape to a nearby pub and raise the alarm. Lord Lucan then vanished, creating a mystery that’s never been solved.
In 1975, an inquest jury declared Lord Lucan to be the nanny’s killer and, in his absence, the coroner committed him to the Crown Court for unlawful killing. Two years later, as a direct result of this inquest, the Criminal Law Act of 1977 amended the law so that coroners no longer had the power to do this.
‘I do appreciate the British sense of fairness,’ says Fie. ‘I really believe that no one is guilty until they have been proven so in court.
‘My father-in-law never went to court, and the law was changed so no one could ever be pronounced guilty without a full and fair trial.’
In 2016, after decades of conspiracy theories, a presumption of death certificate was issued by the High Court, clearing the way for George to claim the earldom.
George’s mother, who died last year, was a recluse and estranged from her family. Despite invitations from her son, she never met her granddaughter, Daphne.
‘George is reserved partly because he’s grown up with people judging him before they’ve ever spoken to him and assuming a lot of things basically before he’s even said “Hello”,’ says Fie. ‘People forget that George was aged seven when he lost a nanny he loved.
‘He was removed by the authorities from his mother, who never wanted anything to do with him or his sisters. She actually got a lawyer to write a letter that said if you keep contacting my client, she will sue for harassment. That
was to her own children after they had been removed from her care. It was always Dad who was the stable and loving element in his life — and he vanished.
‘It’s not something that he likes to dwell on.’
Removing her tweed jacket, Fie sits me down on a sofa with plush scatter cushions and offers me a smorgasbord of Danish savouries.
The living room has bookshelves with framed family holiday snaps. one is of a smiling, chubby-faced George as a child with his sisters and father. Fie explains that this was a trip where father taught son to swim.
Taking a faded, yellowing letter from the mantelpiece, she shows me what is clearly a treasured note to George from his father a few years before his disappearance. It is written in a big, scrawly font, encouraging the boy to write a ‘thank you note’ to ‘Auntie Christina’ for looking after him on a recent stay.
Although George and his sisters, Frances and Camilla, continued to live with their mother immediately after their father’s disappearance, in 1982 custody of all three was transferred to Christina, their mother’s sister, and her husband, Bill shand Kydd.
The note carries a deeply affectionate tone, but it cannot disguise a troubled concern in each line. ‘I hear lots of lovely warm stories about “Dad” from George,’ explains Fie. ‘he and his two sisters tried to get back in touch with their mother and she didn’t want anything to do with them. That’s hurtful.’ since she married George in 2016, Fie has been fiercely protective of her husband, aware of the burden he’s carried his entire life.
‘ I’m a Viking,’ she declares, pulling herself up to her full height of 5 ft 10 in.
Born in Copenhagen, she was educated at Gordonstoun, to be close to her father’s scottish estates in east Lothian and Perthshire. she then studied history of art at the Courtauld Institute of Art and psychology, briefly, at Regent’s University.
her twin brother, Caspar, runs an urban clothing company in norway, but she never saw herself going into fashion.
Fiercely competitive, she instead became a Team GB and european shooting champion.
But it was while looking for a suitable coat for country sports, with big patch pockets and room for manoeuvring shoulders, that she had her ‘eureka’ moment.
‘I realised there was this big hole in the market,’ she says. ‘out of frustration, really, I realised the only way to find my dream coat was to make it myself.’
An admirer of all things vintage, the design process began with her ripping the linings out of classic coats, cutting off pockets and stapling them back in a more functional position.
‘I had bags of stuff that I liked and bags full of stuff I didn’t like . . . which was 99 per cent of what’s out there.’ she began to assemble a team to bring her brand to life.
‘Part of the foundation of Lucan is that it is about an outdoor lifestyle, yet, when I was younger, I used to go to scotland and wear my Louboutins and smart clothes so I didn’t have to go and climb a mountain or get in a canoe,’ she confesses. ‘I hate mud.’
Being a foreigner, it seems, has allowed her to put a new spin on fusty, pickled-in-aspic tweeds.
‘What we have aimed to do with the colour and style of the garments is keep tweed and cashmere as our fabric, but make it wearable in the city — not boxy, fusty or fuddy-duddy, but bright, humorous and urbane.’
The brand’s motto is bold, spirited and daring. A lot like the new Lady Lucan, in fact.
‘everything is about versatility,’ she says. ‘You can dress it up with a brooch or wear it with jeans.’
For men, the newest addition is cord. (‘Cord is hot. Cord is sexy.’)
When we next meet, at the fashion shoot, which takes place at heaselands, a Grade II-listed park and garden in haywards heath owned by Lord Lucan’s cousin, guess who wears the sexy cord? George himself makes his modelling debut — along with daughter Lady Daphne.
‘What’s wonderful is that my husband and I are very different, but it just works,’ laughs Fie. ‘I’m outgoing and will zoom up to people and speak my mind. George is not like that at all.’
In person, George is a paler version of his father, who famously wore a moustache, but the family resemblance is still strong. he wears a bespoke corduroy Lucan jacket in a pale straw pink, teamed with a Jermyn street shirt and tie. Another outfit is an immaculately tailored tweed coat worn with a grey roll-neck and slacks.
With prices starting at £95 for a tweed cap and £325 for jackets, the collection isn’t cheap. But then, neither is the fabric or the exquisite craftsmanship.
The tweed comes from the 180year-old Abraham Moon & sons wool mill in Guiseley, Yorkshire, while the cutting pattern for the ladies’ norfolk jacket contains 56 separate pieces. These certainly aren’t mass-produced high street pieces. The Lannagh coat, a pale blue shetland twill, may carry a price tag of more than £1,000, but only ten are being made.
FIE poses in her own designs, which include a cashmere tailored cardigan that can slip over an evening dress or soften workwear. ‘I love smoking cigars and, wearing this, I can sneak outside if it’s chilly.’
she also wears the Va Va Voom jacket in fuchsia tweed.
‘Lucan clothes are about colour, flexibility and investment in a British product. We source and make everything here in Britain: we want to support our industries. But the beauty of so many pieces is they can be worn with jeans.’
As the couple pose for photographs, their daughter kicks up leaves nearby, laughing and playing in the sunshine under the watchful gaze of her parents. she will lead the carefree childhood George never did.
George still treasures keepsakes and letters from his father’s friends who have written to him. one details how Lord Lucan was known in the Army as ‘ Arthur’, after a cartoon character. It seems he was much loved.
‘one thing I do appreciate about Danish culture is that everybody moves on,’ says Fie. ‘ Whatever hangovers date from World War II, people move on. There are so many other positive things — why keep dragging up the past?’
The 44-year mystery of what happened to his father should not be forgotten, but the name of Lucan now finally has a chance to be famous for something else.
‘The clothes are so bold and adventurous. It’s such a happy change from all the darker tones the name had assumed in recent decades’ GEORGE BINGHAM, 8TH EARL OF LUCAN