Tennant always maintained a lifelong interest in sculpture, establishing a studio at her home in Berwickshire, where she worked with her sister Issy on a luxury homewares brand named Tennant & Tennant. Shortly after the birth of her third child in 2002, Tennant made a return to modeling in a campaign for Burberry shot by Mario Testino that was partly credited with revitalizing the fortunes of the brand and returning it to its now global status as a fashion leader.Īnother career milestone came at the closing ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics, at which Tennant appeared with fellow British models Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell (among others) during a tribute to the country’s fashion industry. (The pair would marry later that year, with Tennant wearing a memorably minimalist Helmut Lang gown for their wedding in Scotland.) In 1998, after announcing her first pregnancy with her photographer boyfriend David Lasnet, Tennant retired from the industry. She also became a mainstay of Alexander McQueen’s runway spectacles, walking for some of his most celebrated shows, including spring 1996’s “The Hunger” and spring 1997’s “La Poupée.” On the runways, Tennant made regular appearances for Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, as well as the likes of Jean-Paul Gaultier and Versace. She also became a favorite of some of the most influential fashion photographers of the 1990s, including Mario Testino, David Sims, and Mark Borthwick, embodying the edgy, waifish insouciance that served as one of the defining features of fashion imagery throughout that decade.

grunge movement.Ī famous anecdote saw Tennant show up to the shoot with a nose ring, much to the surprise of the Vogue editors-it was her refusal to remove it that endeared her to Meisel, who invited her to model for him the next day in a Paris shoot for Vogue Italia.įrom there, Tennant was a regular muse of Meisel’s, shot by him most recently for the December 2018 cover of British Vogue. Her career as a model began when she caught the eye of fashion writer Plum Sykes, with whom she appeared in the now-iconic Steven Meisel shoot for British Vogue’s December 1993 issue, “Anglo-Saxon Attitude,” which captured a nascent London scene of well-heeled women whose eccentric take on style offered a British counterpart to the U.S. Tennant displayed a natural creative instinct from a young age, attending the British boarding school Marlborough College before going on to complete a degree in sculpture at the Winchester College of Art. It was a region she continued to feel closely connected to throughout her jet-setting modeling career, and one she would call home again upon purchasing a Berwickshire farmhouse in the early-aughts. Tobias Tennant and his wife Lady Emma-daughter of the 11th Duke of Devonshire and his wife Deborah, the youngest of the famous high-society Mitford sisters.ĭespite her aristocratic pedigree, Tennant’s upbringing was decidedly more down to earth she grew up on a 1,500-acre sheep farm in the Scottish Borders. Tennant was born in 1970 as the youngest of three to the Hon. Arrangements for a memorial service will be announced at a later date.” “Stella was a wonderful woman and an inspiration to us all.

“It is with great sadness we announce the sudden death of Stella Tennant on 22 December 2020,” the statement read. The news of Tennant’s untimely death was confirmed earlier today in a statement released by her family-including her husband, the French photographer David Lasnet, and her four children, Marcel, Cecily, Jasmine, and Iris-who asked for their privacy to be respected. While Tennant was first known for her signature tousled pixie haircut, androgynous features, and commanding six-foot-tall presence-as well as her longstanding creative relationships with fashion legends from Steven Meisel to Karl Lagerfeld-her passion for sculpture, environmental causes, and her home country of Scotland were what eventually became closest to her heart. Stella Tennant, the iconic British model famed for her statuesque beauty and inimitable personal style, has passed away at the age of 50.

Stella tennant