The former fashion director on her eclectic style, the myth of age-appropriate dressing – and life after burning bridges
Lucinda Chambers has the kind of style you just can’t buy. That illusive je ne sais quoi that’s eye-catching without being attention-seeking. See today’s sparkly, dangly earrings worn with her fine blond hair twisted into a perfectly imperfect messy bun. She can make an outfit that sounds chaotic on paper (say, a pleat skirt with a bright print blouse, ribbed socks, chunky pool slider shoes) look a match made in heaven, and make perfectly ordinary pieces (a man’s white shirt and black trousers) look exquisite by dint of a just-so sleeve roll and the ideal number of buttons undone.
The house where she has lived in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, for 30 years is the same. Grand and yet slightly scruffy, it has one room painted pink and another yellow, and yet, somehow, an air of quiet harmony. My visit falls on one of the last warm, sunny mornings of the great summer of 2018 and Chambers has the doors open from her kitchen (garden flowers on the wooden table, seating nooks patchworked with cushions, holiday postcards cheek by jowl with classic photography) on to a veranda, white wooden boards foxed and flecked with age, where wicker chairs look on to a long, green garden. An antique silver candelabra with neon-yellow candles sits in front of a faded curtain of rose and white ticking stripe fabric.
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