Lucinda Chambers

Lucinda Chambers (born 1959) is a British fashion director, designer and stylist. She worked at Vogue for 36 years altogether, working her way up to the post of fashion director. She was also fashion director for British Elle, working there for seven years. Alongside her two business partners, she created the luxury brand Colville, which launched in 2018.

During her career, Chambers has worked with many different photographers including Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier and Herb Ritts. She has worked with and photographed models including Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, Lily Cole and Naomi Campbell. While working for Vogue and Elle, she was also consulting for fashion houses such as Prada, Jil Sander and Marni, and many high street brands as well as other smaller independent magazines.

Early life Lucinda Chambers was born in 1959 in Notting Hill, west London. She has a sister from her mother, Anne’s, previous marriage, who was born ten years prior She then began to try and design and make her own items such as, accessories for her room, bags, and clothing she first started off making trousers. She would only buy fabrics that would stand out to her, unusual bold fabrics. As well as renovating houses, Anne would also offer her sewing services for extra money; for example, every June she would sew all the school uniforms for the local school. Lucinda went on to study at Hornsey College of Art for a foundation course when she was 18, while her mother went to the London College of Printing at 58 to learn bookbinding.

Career Chambers claimed to hate art college as fashion was seen as being frivolous by staff and students alike, and started making plastic jewellery in another department in her free time. The nine models included Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, as well as seven others.

She has twice been recognised in the Fashion Awards awarded by the British Fashion Council, receiving the Stylist award in 1999 and 2001.

Controversy After being sacked from Vogue in May 2017 by Edward Enninful, Chambers gave an interview with Vestoj, This was to be luxury ready-to-wear brand Colville which was launched in May 2018, making its debut in American Vogue. The initial collection was only available via e-tailer matchesfashion.com, which helped the label achieve an exclusive status. The brand is also marketed as "the antithesis of fast fashion".

She has an online course on the Business of Fashion website where she teaches ‘Fashion Styling and Image Making’ and also still freelances and consults.

Personal life She has lived in Shepherds Bush, west London for over 30 years and has three sons from two different relationships. The eldest is Toby Knott, whose father is photographer Kim Knott. The middle son is Theo and the youngest is Gabriel, both of whom are from her marriage with radio producer Simon Crow.

As mentioned, Chambers is good friends with Mario Testino, who has been through some controversy himself. He was accused of sexually harassing 13 male models and assistants in March 2018, however Lucinda claims she’s never seen him be inappropriate with anyone and continues to have a working relationship and friendship with him. Patrick Demarchelier has also been accused of sexual misconduct, which he denied. Chambers said “I ran a tight ship on my shoots. I don’t think people would have dared. Only once in my career have I seen a photographer behave toward a model in a way that I considered unacceptable. I stopped the shoot and never worked with him again.”