“Stella Tennant was a supermodel who showed women the beauty of being different” | STYLIST

British fashion icon Stella Tennant took her own life after struggling with her mental health, according to a statement released by her family. Christobel Hastings looks back at the unique legacy she modelled, both on and off the catwalk.

I begin this piece with a caveat: I’m not a massive lover of fashion. My wardrobe is a rotating cast of grey, black and navy blue, and I don’t keep up with new season trends. I usually flick past all the fashion shoots in magazines in order to get straight to the features (blasphemous, I know) and, pandemic aside, I can’t remember the last time I visited a high street shop.

Yet when I heard the news that the legendary British supermodel Stella Tennant had died just days after her fiftieth birthday, my stomach dropped. The name on my notifications feed was at once warmly familiar and oddly distant, and it took me a few hours to remember who Tennant was, and process exactly why I felt so affected by her passing.

That was until I saw the photos filling my social media feeds, and I suddenly remembered. Memories of scrapbooking during the 90s at my Mum’s kitchen table, carefully tearing pictures and daubing them with flour and water paste. There were stacks of magazines around the house, and in amongst the cookery and interiors monthlies, there was always a slightly battered, glossy fashion magazine that would be swiftly ripped to shreds. And there was always one recurring face. Porcelain skin, slate blue eyes. A tousled pixie haircut.

Read the full feature here.

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