As the consigliere to John Galliano for his first 13 years in fashion
and to Karl Lagerfeld for the past 12, “I’ve had the most
extraordinary voyage through dressing,” says Lady Amanda Harlech
(above, right). She traces her interest in fashion to her childhood costume
trunk, full of black chiffon dresses and velvet evening capes, and to
the book The Cuckoo Clock, by Mrs. Molesworth, about an orphaned child
invalid led on extraordinary journeys by the bird in a clock.
“She’d go inside Chinese cabinets and to the Land of the
Butterflies and dress in the world that the cuckoo took her to,”
Harlech recalls. “For me, that was one of the really big
starting-gun fire-ups to the transformative world of clothes. I could
make my own magic and go to my secret places.” She’s since
acquired a more sizable wardrobe, formerly housed at the Ritz in Paris
and now at her home in Shropshire, England—and it still takes her
where she wants to go. Recently, it was to Lagerfeld’s house in
Ramatuelle, near Saint-Tropez. “I love staying there because
it’s a moment to wear extraordinary 19th-century white cotton
petticoats and lace. You can be really inventive and not
practical.” Her daughter, Tallulah (above, left), a fledgling actress and
model, made her fashion debut at age 12 holding Lagerfeld’s hand
during the finale of his Chanel 2000 couture show. “I played
and imagined,” Harlech says. “But Tallulah has taken it to
the next level by being that person onstage.”
Left: Chanel jacquard dress, and hat. chanel rouge allure
luminous intense lip colour in rouge noir. Right: Chanel Haute
Couture silk velvet dress. Piers Atkinson veil; LaCrasia Gloves gloves.
-
W
- Fashion
The Originals
For these muses, outliers, and eccentrics, getting dressed is an end in itself.
November 2012
Amanda and Tallulah Harlech
November 2012
More Fashion
