Written by Scottie Andrew, CNN
Stella Tennant made a name for herself in modeling by avoiding the traditionally feminine aesthetic that made her contemporaries stars. With her blunt pixie cut and piercing look, she was the sniff of ’90s fashion.
Tennant, who has maintained her lead throughout her long career in fashion, passed away this week at the age of 50, Vogue reported. Tennant’s family, including her husband, David Lasnet, and their four children, confirmed the news in a statement to the fashion outlet.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the sudden death of Stella Tennant on December 22, 2020,” the statement read. “Stella was a wonderful woman and an inspiration to all of us. She will be missed immensely.”
Tennant was a gifted model with a punkier look than British supermodels Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. Her hair was often cropped and spiky, and you’d rarely see her smile in the pages of Vogue.
Stella Tennant, seen here in 2011, was a muse of Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel’s late leader. Credit: Remy de la Mauviniere / AP
Despite all the edge she brought in editorial fashion, designers loved her. She was a celebrity creation muse like Helmut Lang, whose shows she described as one of her favorites to walk in, and the late Karl Lagerfeld when he directed Chanel. She continued to hit the runway until the beginning of this year, when she walked for Valentino for Paris Fashion Week.
Born by British aristocrats and raised on a sheep farm in Scotland, Tennant started modeling ‘accidentally’, she told British Vogue in 2018. While many models of her time were discovered by scouts as a teenager, Tennant still sent pictures to casting- agents in her early twenties. She was a graduate of art school and planned to pursue sculpture when modeling didn’t take off.
A 1993 British Vogue feature called “London Girls” turned out to be her big break. Tennant, her eyes surrounded by heavy black eyeliner, wore an Alexander McQueen dress and a subversive septum piercing. Surrounded by veteran models, the 22-year-old was asked to appear in an advertisement for Versace on the shoot.
She soon appeared in as many as 75 runway shows per season, she said in an interview in 2018. She was tired of the frenetic pace of fashion when she and her then-husband decided to have children.
“I gave it my all, all my energy and time, and now we’re going out and starting a family together,” she told fashion publication The Document Journal in 2018. “And I thought I was unsubscribing.”
In the 2000s, when fashion magazines favored a more traditionally glamorous look for models, Tennant said she felt her spotlight shrinking.
“The agency didn’t really know what to do with me,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s no surprise. I’ve had my little moment, and the fashion has moved on, and I’m going too.’ ”
Tennant continued to model, albeit less often than in her twenties. From time to time, some of her four children appeared in photo shoots with her, including in 2019, when she and her daughter Iris starred in an advertisement encouraging UK residents to buy second-hand. (Tennant spent much of her time advancing sustainable goals.)
Perhaps her most memorable moment of the past decade was in 2012, when she and other British supermodels stepped into the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in London. In addition to Moss, Campbell and more, Tennant donned a Christopher Kane suit – the only woman among them not wearing a dress. Her hair was dyed black and cut in the style of a jagged mullet. Her edge had only gotten sharper.
The fashion world is mourning
Tennant’s frequent costars and employees mourned her passing online.
Campbell called Tennant “a class act in every way” in an Instagram post.
“When we saw each other, we always picked up where we left off,” she wrote. “Effortless and the epitome of Grace, even if you were sitting in a corner making your needle point.”
On Twitter, Versace
said Tennant had been the muse of the late house founder Gianni and a “friend of the family” for many years.
Nina Garcia, Elle editor and ‘Project Runway’ judge,
said Tennant “mixed fragility and innate elegance with an androgynous look” that inspired numerous designers.
With Tennant’s death, fashion has lost one of its favorite nonconformists.
