User:Daisy blance/sandbox

Early Life
Lucinda Chambers was born in West London, Notting hill, in 1959. Growing up she lived with her Mother Anne, her father [1] ,brother Rourden who is just over a year older than Lucinda[2] and half-sister who is 10 years older. Chamber describes herself as ‘’very acquisitive and has been since I was a child’’, on family holidays she would always bring an item back as sentimental value that would remind her of that specific day, admiring the beauty within. This continued as she grew a passion for textiles, when she began collecting eye catching fabrics when she was 12-13 years old, she would go down to Portobello Market every Friday morning, a tradition she still upholds to this day. 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.

She spent the majority of her childhood moving from house to house around Knightsbridge and South Kensington, ‘We never moved off page 58 of the A-Z between Brompton Oratory and Harrods,'  chamber recalls. This was a source of income for her mother, helping her to put her children through school, she would buy a property and decorate it herself, to be able to then sell on the house for a profit. Form a very young age Chambers recalls sewing with the older brother Rourden, making doll’s clothes and theatres that they made from old cereal boxes. This lead to them helping their mother for pocket money, form making all of the school uniforms for the Falkner House school not far from them, Chambers remembers this as a fond memory of her sewing the buttons on to the blue blazers, and the house being completely covered in blue felt once all of the uniforms where made. Even though her mother didn’t have the money for clothes for her children, she would still ensure she could find ways in which to ensure her children were still well dressed.  'We would go to Harrods and I would try everything on, and she would have a tape measure in her pocket, then we'd go home, and she would make me a snakeskin tunic' Chamber recalls. [3]Chambers mother played a key role in her discovering the fashion industry as her mother was always well dressed and was always good at sewing, even though they had very little money she made the most out of both her clothes and Lucinda’s. [4] [1] http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9540878/The-singular-vision-of-Lucinda-Chambers-fashion-director-of-British-Vogue.html

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/that-girl-next-door-is-just-shtick-vogues-lucinda-chambers-on-be/

[3] http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9540878/The-singular-vision-of-Lucinda-Chambers-fashion-director-of-British-Vogue.html

[4] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/style/former-vogue-fashion-director-lucinda-chambers-not-dressing/

Education
Chamber originally had very little ambition for herself and was going to attend a secretarial college. Just before chambers was going to leave for college her father left, as a result she could then no longer afford to attend the course. Chambers mother Anne suggested that they should both go to art college as they wouldn’t have to pay for this course, as you can get a grant. At the age of 58 Anne enrolled at the London college of printing, as she was interested in bookbinding. Her mother excelled on the course and ended up herself giving lectures and wrote a book. Whereas Chambers went to do a foundation course Hornsey College of art, however the course wasn’t as fashion based as chambers as hoped. Resulting in in chambers not enjoying the course, she ended up focusing her time on making jewellery that she went on to sell to friends and shops.[1] [1]

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9540878/The-singular-vision-of-Lucinda-Chambers-fashion-director-of-British-Vogue.html

Career
When chambers left college in 1979, she moved into a squat in London, she got a job in Topshop where she was a sales assistant, as well as making costumes for a theatre in Edinburgh. [1]

In 1980 Chambers decided to get into contact with Vogue and ask for an interview, after one of her pieces that she had made was featured in a magazine, giving her the confidence to contact vogue. She got a job in vogue starting with initially working as an account assistant for Ms Davies, but from a chance encounter led to chambers get getting an interview to become Beatrix Millers the editor of vogue’s assistant. She held the position for 3 years, before she became the assistant to Grace Coddington, who Chambers believes "was, and still is, the queen bee of fashion". [2] chambers says she was a “terrible assistant”, as she disliked returning clothes and would instead keep them all in a cupboard at work where the fashion editor at the time Liz Tilberis, once found them all stored and insisted that they were all sent back immediately.

During her time working as Coddington’s assistant, she met Mario Testino who through working together became close friends with and have been working together since that day. [3] However, Mario had first spotted Chambers in London back in 1979, he was traveling on a double decker bus going down Regents street where he describes he ‘’saw a girl who had quite a particular, almost freaky look with shocking bleached blond hair’’. at the time chambers was going to a salon on Walton West street where she would allow a trainee stylist experiment on her hair. They later met on a shoot in old Charing Cross Hospital where he was working as a photographer for Ellis Helen, he instantly recognised her when she came in with the models. Their friendship is described to have produced some of the ‘most iconic images of our generation’. The first piece of work that they worked on together for months was in the early 1980’s, was a single page on vintage clothing.

Cambers went on to work for Felicity Clark the beauty editor for Vogue, where she did her first shoots for the beauty pages, where every two weeks she travelled to New York, to work with different make-up artist and photographers. Chambers really enjoyed this as she said it was very good training. After some time doing this chamber was then given her first main fashion shoot, where she was allowed go anywhere she wanted and choose anyone she wanted to work with. She chose to work with Patrick Demarchelier, who she had previously worked as an assistant for. For the shoot chambers used a series of felt hats that she couldn’t resists not using for the shoot as she had been inspired by them, despite being told that she couldn’t use hats for the shoot, as she always feature hats in all of her shoots. Despite chambers worries about losing her job after including hats, Coddington loved the images.

In September 1985, Chambers left working in the fashion department of Vogue, to work for ELLE as the fashion director when it first launched in the United Kingdom, by Sally Brampton who personally asked for chamber to join her. Chambers described the transition from assistant to fashion director as an ‘incredible jump’ one she didn’t feel as though she was prepared for, however she didn’t feel as though she would fail. She worked at ELLE for 7 years before she returned to Vogue (1992) and went on to become the fashion director when Alexandra Shulman became editor.

During her career chambers has worked with many different famous photographers including photographers Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier and Herb Ritts. She has done shoots with models Cindy Crawford in the far north of India, did a story in Antwerp on the Arizona muse, and a story on Freja Beha Erichsen, she has also worked with and photographed Kate Moss, Lily Cole and Naomi Campbell for the closing ceremony of the Olympics 2012, which involved commissioning nine different designers to design and make pieces for the models, that were shot by Nick Knight on the night of the Olympics, asd well as chambers son Toby Knott who documented backstage for the Vogue app. [4] Whilst chambers worked for vogue and ELLE, she was also consulting for fashion houses such as Prada, Jill Sander and Marni, and many high street brands as well as other smaller  independent magazines. [5]

In the summer of 2017 chambers stepped down as the fashion director of British vogue, after a career of 36 years and 25 years as the fashion director. During her time at vogue chambers is described to have, "produced many of the most influential and inspiring fashion shoots in the world”, she was the forefront of magazine publishing. After leaving vogue in 2018 chambers launched her own clothing line Colville, with Kristin Forss and Molly Molloy. [6] [1] http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9540878/The-singular-vision-of-Lucinda-Chambers-fashion-director-of-British-Vogue.html

[2] https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/lucinda-chambers-fashion-director-leaves-british-vogue

[3] https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/lucinda-chambers-fashion-director-leaves-british-vogue

[4] http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9540878/The-singular-vision-of-Lucinda-Chambers-fashion-director-of-British-Vogue.html

[5] https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/lucinda-chambers-fashion-director-leaves-british-vogue

[6] https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/lucinda-chambers-fashion-director-leaves-british-vogue

Personal life
Chambers is married to Simon Crow, a radio producer. They have two children Theo age 27 and Gabriel age 22, chambers also has another son from previous relationship with photographer Kim Knott, Toby Knott age who is 32 who like his father is also a photographer. Chambers described herself as an ‘absent mother’, as she was very career driven, having to spend the majority of her time traveling for work. As she had to spend four months a year at fashion shows in Millan Paris and New York. Her husband Simon took on the parenting roles. They have lived in their family home in Shepherd’s Bush, since chambers sold her first flat and used the money to buy that house, as she had spent so much of her childhood moving houses, she wanted a permanent home that they could stay in.