Lady Kitty Spencer: “For me, love is the most important thing in the world”
From the triumphs and tribulations of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire to Sarah Churchill’s tumultuous relationship with Queen Anne, and the legacy of Diana as ‘the People’s Princess’, the Spencer name is one of the most resonant in British history. But despite being the Princess of Wales’ niece, a descendant of Charles II and a distant cousin of Winston Churchill, Lady Kitty Spencer managed to avoid the limelight for most of her early life. That all changed, however, when she arrived at her cousin Prince Harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle in 2018, dazzling in an emerald-green, hand-painted Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda gown with a matching Philip Treacy fascinator and orange velvet heels, capturing the attention of fashion-lovers the world over.
She was thrust into the spotlight overnight, reflected most dramatically by her Instagram following, which leapt from 37,000 to a staggering half a million. “I woke up the next day and looked at my phone and thought, ‘Whoops, did I take someone else’s by mistake?’” she says. “It was very weird, and a little bit overwhelming.” This kind of self-effacement is characteristic of Kitty – even though within a week of the wedding she was scooped up to be the face of Bulgari, and has since worked with brands including Alberta Ferretti and Ralph Lauren.
We have met in a gilded side-room of Dolce & Gabbana’s flagship store on Old Bond Street, because the now 30-year-old model has recently been named ambassador for the label. Given the Italian house’s enduring love affair with the nobility – adorning its confections with regalia and dubbing its favourite clients ‘Queens’ – it seems a natural fit. Yet Kitty is not your typical aristocrat. Dressed casually today in blue skinny jeans, trainers and a camel blazer lined with leopard print, with her blonde hair tied in a neat ponytail and not a slick of make-up on, she’s unquestionably beautiful. She has her family’s famous wide blue eyes and the allure of a classic English rose combined with an apparent effortlessness that draws your gaze towards her, and speaks softly with a South African accent, acquired in her Cape Town childhood.
Kitty moved to London aged 22 to do a master’s degree in luxury-business management, after studying Italian and art in Florence for three years, and had never imagined becoming a model like her mother Victoria Aitken (though she appeared by her side on the cover of Harpers & Queen at the age of one). When Dolce & Gabbana invited Kitty to make her catwalk debut in Milan in February 2017, she almost declined. “It was terrifying!” she says. “I was 26 and working full-time for a charity, and I loved it, but it’s very different from that world of style. I went home and spoke to my family, and my mum said, ‘Well, why don’t you?’” Once the idea was planted in her head, she couldn’t shake it. “I thought, ‘I’m going to do it for my older self, so I can look back and say I did it.’” She also cites how reassured she was by the brand’s emphasis on body-positivity and describes that first show as “the start of a confidence-building exercise”. “I remember trying to be really healthy, going to the gym and doing that sort of stuff, and when I tried on the dress for a fitting, Domenico [Dolce] was like, ‘Have you lost weight?’ I proudly answered, ‘Yes!’ and he said, ‘OK, now the measurements are different…’ There was no emphasis on size – that’s not what it’s about at all.”
Growing up in South Africa, Kitty says fashion wasn’t an important part of her life, explaining: “We don’t have the big brands there; it’s so far removed.” The privacy she experienced enabled her to have what she describes as a “peaceful, wholesome childhood”. Her father Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer, and mother decided to relocate from their home at Althorp with their four children in tow for “a fresh start”, she says. “I think it was the change of scene that both my parents wanted for different reasons. We were so young; I was five, my sisters Eliza and Amelia were three, and my brother Louis was one, and it was a case of ‘If not now, then when?’” They bought a large house in the Upper Constantia region of Cape Town. But her parents split up shortly afterwards, and Kitty’s father moved up the road. Tragedy befell the family when, two years later, Diana died, and a year after that, Charles’ house was struck by lightning and burnt down. “There was a lot going on then, and the divorce was finalised, so he moved back to England,” she reflects, “but he continued to come to Cape Town twice a term, and we would go to Althorp every holiday.”
The 13,000-acre Althorp estate in Northamptonshire, where Kitty was born, has been in the Spencer family for more than 500 years, and as such, she says “it really feels the most like home”. Steeped in history, with paintings by Rubens, Reynolds and Van Dyck hanging on the walls, it is here that Diana was laid to rest. “We have such an emotional attachment to Althorp,” Kitty says. “That’s where we would have our Easter-egg hunts and our Christmases; I have my little vegetable patch, I learnt to ride a horse there, I learnt to ride a bike and to rollerblade. It’s so lovely to look back on the history and think everybody else probably learnt to ride a horse there, too.” Having been based in London during lockdown, she has missed this place most over the past year – the central hub of her family life. As the eldest of nine siblings, following her parents’ subsequent remarriages, Kitty is “very protective”. She is close to all of them, particularly her twin sisters Eliza and Amelia, who are just 18 months younger than she is. “We are a bit of a tripod,” she says beaming. “It’s been horrible to be separated this year. They are in South Africa, which is only an hour ahead, and with two flights going there a day, you usually have the comforting thought of, ‘I could always be there in the morning if I needed to be.’ It’s been awful to be completely shut off, and thinking, come what may, we can’t be there for each other…”
This feeling of helplessness has pervaded recent months for many of us, but Kitty stresses how terrible it has been for the people she supports through her work with the homelessness charity Centrepoint and Give Us Time, which assists military families. The latter focuses on sending soldiers and their loved ones on respite breaks to strengthen relationships and help with PTSD, which Kitty says has been all but impossible during the pandemic. “It’s just such a debilitating feeling to think we haven’t been able to do what we set out to do, because I know the difference it makes,” she says. When she tells me about a particular soldier with terminal cancer whom the organisation did manage to send on holiday in October, her eyes well up. “A lot of them are final holidays, and it’s so sad that people have not been able to have that time,” she explains, leaning over for a paper napkin to wipe away her tears. Despite these challenges, Kitty has done her best to co-ordinate alternative bonding experiences for such families, including organising safari days at Longleat with her friend the Viscountess Emma Weymouth.
Kitty’s compassion for others also extends to animals – especially her beloved cat Baby D, a grey Burmese, who lives with her mother in South Africa, where he gets up to all sorts of mischief. “He looks so lazy and fat, but he’s on it,” she says, laughing. “As soon as somebody turns around, he will have his face in a glass of champagne or the crisp bowl. At Christmas he was having gammon and salmon – I don’t give him any of these things, he just finds them.”
Reports have linked her romantically to the businessman Michael Lewis, but she has never publicly spoken about her personal life – nor is she ever likely to, she says. “I feel less vulnerable when I don’t discuss things like my love life. I just think, ‘Really, what’s that got to do with anyone else?’ It shouldn’t make a difference to anyone’s day. Who I love or don’t love, or have a crush on or don’t have a crush on, or go on a date with, I don’t know why that should be what somebody reads over their cornflakes. As long as I keep it sacred, then it can remain so. As soon as I don’t, I don’t think you can get it back.” Her attitude is understandable, particularly considering the scrutiny the women in her family have faced. “It’s not that I don’t place an importance on love,” says Kitty. “It’s because, for me, love is the most important thing in the world, and I will protect it with all my heart by not making it a topic of discussion. You open yourself up to other people having opinions, and it just isn’t relevant to anybody’s life but mine and my family’s.”
Even with her resolute silence on certain subjects, gossip has a tendency to persist. In January, a story came out that she had spent lockdown renovating her supposed £19 million home. These reports are false, she says, stating that images in the article were an amalgam of different places she has visited. “I looked at it and was like, ‘OK, that bathroom is at 5 Hertford Street, that table is at my friend Stephanie’s house; there’s a picture of me with a rolling-pin making a pizza in my friend Vesna’s kitchen.’ Only one of those pictures is inside my home now,” she explains, adding light-heartedly, “Putting it all together, it does look like a cool house!” While she does love interiors, she reveals that the biggest project she has embarked on in that realm is designing a dressing-room for her guest bedroom.
Otherwise, Kitty has used this year to enrol in online courses at the same school where she studied when she lived in Florence – a time she reflects on as having been “the happiest of my life”. “Everything felt so simple and carefree, but you’re still being stimulated in a culturally rich environment. It’s just pure pleasure and learning, and being surrounded by every type of beauty,” she says. “If I’m lucky enough to live to the age of retirement, Florence is where you’ll find me.”
As the eldest child of Earl Spencer, you might expect Kitty to live out her golden years at Althorp, but her brother Louis will inherit both it and the family’s home in St James’s, Spencer House. I wonder how this has affected her. “It’s a tricky one, that topic, because as times are changing, attitudes are as well,” she says, pensively. “I’m relaxed about it, because I know that it’s all out of everyone’s hands. As it stands, it’s Louis to inherit, and Louis will do an incredible job.”
Although part of her heart will always belong to Florence and another to South Africa, Kitty feels British at her core. “And my children will feel British too, I hope,” she pauses, before adding with a laugh, “British with an obsession with Italy.” Her adoration of Italy goes hand in hand with her appreciation for artisanal craftsmanship, so you might think she would be tempted to try designing herself. “When you see these maestros sketching and doing their thing… I don’t know if I would be good enough,” she says, “but my goodness it would be incredible. Maybe a capsule collection?” However, her ambitions for the future are surprisingly humble.
“I just look forward to a really happy home life: a happy marriage and happy children. And I feel very at peace that things play out the way they should,” she says. With her enviable inheritance of beauty and generosity, there is no doubt that the domestic bliss she hopes for is on her horizon – and when it comes, you can be sure she will guard it closely.
This interview appears in Town & Country’s summer issue, on sale from 13 May.
