See Inside Vintage-Obsessed Martha Sitwell’s London Home

Main featured image: Martha in her dining room in a 1940s satin dress and Charlotte Olympia shoes. Photographed by Andrew Farrar.

It was while sifting through Lady Sitwell’s unconventional knicker drawer, a giant hatbox from Lock & Co hatters, St James’s Street, London, that I was convinced I would catch her out. I was mistaken. Inside, there was neither a flash of grey-white cotton nor an M&S label in sight – only a sea of black La Perla lace, every satin shade of Agent Provocateur pink, and a delicate tangle of antique pastel-toned silk corsets and waspies. Down to her underwear, Martha Sitwell’s’ dedication to vintage style is impressive, if not absolute. Having observed Martha for nearly ten years, at London parties and country weekends, I noted that she is not someone you can miss. Her distinctive husky laughter is always heard over a crowded room, and she is rarely seen without a Marlboro Red to hand. But the most distinctive thing about Martha is the fact that she never appears to be wearing anything made since 1959.

Martha in vintage blue silk with Trevor, “the best dog ever.”

Martha grew up between Belgravia, London and the idyllic north Norfolk countryside near Holt. Most of her time was spent at Shipdham Place in Norfolk, an “over-stuffed” ten-bedroomed Georgian rectory, which was run by her parents as a “restaurant with rooms”. The middle child of three girls of mother Melanie (née Irwin), a once Michelin-starred chef who married father Justin de Blank after starting work at one of his pioneering London delicatessens in 1977, Martha remembers them always looking stylish. Her part-Dutch, part-Scottish-English father was particular about his clothes: “Pa didn’t own a pair of jeans. He wore a lot of corduroy, three-piece, suits, and seersucker” – while her Irish mother was trendy in “pie-crust collars and 1970s leather clogs”.

At weekends the house filled up with interesting people: “Writers, artists, designers, even an MI5 agent”. Prue Leith and Clement Freud were visitors and writer Henrietta Rous once brought Ossie Clark for lunch to discuss the book Rous later published on the iconic 1960s dress designer. The house overspilled with old books, and the art Justin collected. “He had a wonderful eye, my father.” Occasionally, Martha and her sisters would be taken to London for shoe shopping and to have their hair cut at Harrods. “I remember powder-blue leather shoes with a strap and a button you did up with a hook,” Martha reflects. Yet despite these early style influences, and her mother’s best efforts to put her three little blonde girls in matching sailor dresses – “which we hated!” – Martha’s love of horses meant that she spent most of her childhood in jodhpurs. “They had to wrestle me out of the things!” she says. Having been diagnosed with dyslexia late in her school life, she put all her efforts into her riding, until an accident at aged 13 left her with a broken neck and back and caused the death of her pony. She did not get back on a horse until her mid-20s, a few years after her marriage in 2007, aged 21, to Sir George Sitwell, when she gained the title Lady Sitwell.

Vera, the Spanish galgo, and Patterdale terrier Ethel rule the roost of the sitting room.

With George frequently in London, after a few years, life at Weston Hall became lonely, so she finally plucked up the courage to mount a horse, telling herself, “Man up, Martha! You’re going to have to go hunting. It’s the only way to make friends.” After teaching herself to ride again, she pondered whether she would feel safer riding side-saddle. After one serendipitous trial on a filly named Lila Belle with whom Martha fell instantly in love, she was hooked. Martha’s only issue with side-saddle was the lack of riding habits available, so having designed one for herself – she soon had others champing at their bits, not only keen to try side-saddle but also to own one of her costumes. It was then that Sitwell & Whippet, the bespoke field-sports fashion brand, with Martha at the helm. Very quickly, the sight of a mud-spattered Martha leaping over hedges side-saddle in a bowler hat, hairnet, and full-length skirt, cigarette in hand, captured the attention of editors, designers and brands.

The late stylist Isabella Blow had her photographed for Tatler. Philip Treacy and the late Alexander McQueen dressed her as a poster girl for Ascot, while more recently she was asked to create a women’s hunting wardrobe for country clothing brand Harry Hall, reminiscent of the style worn by Lady Mary in Downton Abbey. She also hopes to create a Sitwell & Whippet capsule collection of vintage-inspired wardrobe staples.

Having become a vintage icon on and off the field, I ask whether there was any reason why she had kept it up for so long. “Well, I’ve got this big stupid German face, and, if I straighten my hair and wear modern clothes, I look very plain. And I don’t want to be plain. I’m used to getting a lot of attention and I enjoy it!” Because of Martha’s open-hearted, open-minded character, she was kind enough to invite me to her London flat (in an art deco block in Chelsea entirely in keeping with her wardrobe) to let me rifle through her clothes, which were mesmerising, mainly because there was not a high-street brand among them. Her signature daytime look: “Black and white with the odd flash of colour – often red.”

Martha on her kitchen counter [with Jameson Irish whiskey], dressed as a Marlboro Red, her cabinet filled with all things a Brit should have: Marmite, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce and Wilkin & Sons redcurrant jelly.

From Rare Birds, True Style: Extraordinary Interiors, Personal Collections & Signature Looks by Violet Naylor-Leyland, published by Rizzoli, out now. www.rizzoliusa.com. Photographs by Andrew Farrar.