Fresh off the Eurostar from Paris, Lady Margarita Armstrong-Jones is sipping sparkling mineral water in the conservatory of The Milestone Hotel & Residences in Kensington. Dressed down in a black velour cord jumpsuit from ME+EM, a blue woollen bomber jacket and lace-up shoes, her skin glowing and soft blonde tendrils framing her face, this petite 20-year-old has a quiet charisma.
The summer that Roman Holiday hit cinemas was the summer that the world was alight with rumours of a relationship between Princess Margaret and Captain Peter Townsend
It’s the same unique charm that made her the knockout of Tatler’s Little Black Book party at The Windmill Soho last November. ‘It was wild, super fun, I loved it,’ she says. Wild indeed – Margarita was the last to leave the dancefloor, surrounded by suitors and twirling about in a silver gown and faux-fur jacket. That outfit was the talk of the evening – and caught the imagination of the press because it recalled one very similar worn by her grandmother Princess Margaret. Her look, after all, is Windsor-familiar. She has her grandmother’s (and father’s and great-aunt’s) inquisitive look and her mother’s peaches-and-cream colouring. The result: a proper English-rose bombshell.
In 1951, Cecil Beaton photographed Princess Margaret in Dior for her 21st birthday. Now her granddaughter, turning 21 on 14 May, appears on the cover of Tatler.
The second child of David, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, and Serena, Countess of Snowdon (the Earl of Harrington’s daughter), Margarita occupies that bridge between royalty and (an admittedly gilt-edged version of) normality. For now, the paparazzi wouldn’t recognise her out of context, but she has been there at all the key moments, including Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and the memorial service for the Duke of Edinburgh. At the age of eight, she was an adorable, smiling bridesmaid to William and Kate, sitting next to Pippa Middleton in an open carriage and inside Westminster Abbey. Her father was the late Queen’s godson as well as nephew; and her older brother, Charles, now Viscount Linley, was a page of honour to Her Majesty. There have been Christmases at Sandringham – one year, Prince William was photographed swinging her, a small blonde four-year-old in a traditional coat, into the air – and summers at Balmoral for longer than she can remember.
The royal's granddaughter goes for full-throttle glamour
Her very birth – and name – fit neatly into the immemorial timeline of the British monarchy. Currently 26th in line to the throne, and third (after her father and brother) among those not descended directly from Elizabeth II, Margarita is Princess Margaret’s youngest grandchild and her only granddaughter. They never met: Margaret died in February 2002, followed by the Queen Mother in March of the same year; one month later and named after both of them, Margarita Elizabeth Rose Alleyne Armstrong-Jones was born. For all that, in person she is a self-deprecating, funny, artistic girl, a million miles away from either regal airs or the follower-chasing self-absorption of influencer types (for now, at least, she doesn’t have a public Instagram account).
Margarita is back in London for a few days from Paris, where she shares a flat ‘near the Bastille: a fun place for people my age because it’s quite young and there is a buzz. It’s been an amazing whirlwind of different adventures.’ She’s been living there since September, studying at the prestigious Haute École de Joaillerie, a feeder school for Bulgari, Boucheron and the rest of the haute joaillerie world. Like so many members of her family before her, she is a maker, designer and creator by nature. Her two métiers: jewellery and photography. ‘I probably get the photography from my grandfather and the jewellery from my grandmother,’ she says. After all, Margarita’s paternal grandfather was the renowned photographer Antony, 1st Earl of Snowdon, known as Tony, who married Princess Margaret. A former boxer and Cambridge cox, whose limp was an enduring reminder of the polio he overcame at 16, Tony sometimes photographed Margarita and Charles as children. She was struck by his technical skills, even then: ‘We would see him to have our portraits taken. He would always have these amazing cameras, which he would pull out for special effect. His backdrops were always very simple – he would let you be yourself. He always used the same colour, so that became his style. Lighting, as any photographer would say, is the most important thing. In his other work, he really captures people’s characters, whether it’s with their facial expressions, where they are or what they are wearing – it’s all very clever like that; he is definitely an inspiration.’
Tony came from an intriguing family himself. His mother, Anne Messel, brought up on the Nymans Estate in West Sussex, was one of the Bright Young Things photographed by Cecil Beaton. She married the barrister Ronald Armstrong-Jones, but left him in 1934 for the 6th Earl of Rosse, becoming Countess of Rosse. Like her daughter-in-law, Princess Margaret, Anne was known for her sense of style and her love of jewellery. She was ‘so elegant’, says Margarita.
Anne’s brother, Oliver Messel, had exquisite taste too. Messel was a stage and set designer, responsible for Alexander Korda’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, among many others. Indeed, his sets remain on stage – currently at the Royal Opera House for the ballet, The Sleeping Beauty. He later designed numerous Caribbean properties on the private island of Mustique, including Margaret’s Les Jolies Eaux and the Cotton House hotel, and became known for his blend of romance, classicism and symmetry. ‘We have been to Mustique,’ says Margarita. ‘His designs are so clever. He was probably very eccentric; I would have loved to have met him.’
Like his granddaughter, Tony Snowdon also made jewellery – most famously the engagement ring he presented to Princess Margaret, of which replicas are still sold. A pink-red ruby stone surrounded by diamonds-as-petals to look like a rosebud, the ring was a nod to Rose, her middle name. ‘[It was] very simple and very small and I think that’s probably what he wanted, nothing crazy and overstated,’ says Margarita. ‘It’s timeless.’
Princess Margaret, encouraged by her husband, also commissioned contemporary designers. ‘She is such an influence, she was very creative herself,’ says Margarita, referring to a ‘beautiful’ brooch Margaret had society jeweller Andrew Grima make from a piece of lichen she picked up at Balmoral: ‘That was an influence, because I love more natural pieces.’ Margaret bought her wedding tiara at auction, had gifts reset to her own taste, and once designed a coral and diamond necklace. Her granddaughter is equally exacting: ‘I like nothing too factory-made or straight. I like a little character.’
Then there’s David Linley, now Earl of Snowdon, her entrepreneurial father who was the first royal to have a vocation; the eponymous handmade furniture business he founded in 1985 earned him the nickname ‘the royal carpenter’. ‘I was amazed by how much goes into it all,’ says Margarita of her visits to his studio. ‘And also how much everyone loved their job. His things had a sense of humour.’ But that era has reached its conclusion: David resigned as director of the company in November last year. Alongside a continuing role at Christie’s as an honorary chairman, he is to step up at The Prince’s Foundation. He is, after all, close to his cousin King Charles III. So close that one of the King’s old barns at Highgrove has now become the Snowdon School of Furniture, where the earl will mentor the furniture-makers of the future.
He is also, Margarita notes, a ‘great photographer’, who has always been keen to ‘carry on Grandpa’s love of photography with Charles and me. He [has always] encouraged us to take photos.’ The three kept in contact over lockdown by sending each other a photo a day of ‘anything. Just weird and random things [that we] found interesting. It became a little bit competitive.’
Brother Charles, born in 1999, went to Eton and Loughborough University and is now a musician. ‘He is very into his orchestral music. He is self-taught [and he] can sing, play the piano and the guitar. It’s wonderful,’ says Margarita. ‘Somehow he combines it all together – including online choirs – on his laptop into one piece of music.’ Serena is an artist too: a sculptor. ‘She does animals,’ says Margarita. ‘She won’t sell them, but they are really nice things to give. She’s always had a passion for art.’ After all, Serena, who grew up in Chelsea, Monaco and Ireland, went to art school in Florence before joining Sotheby’s and then Armani, before she married David.
Margarita’s parents – who announced their ‘amicable’ divorce in 2020 – met when her Irish grandfather, the 12th Earl of Harrington, asked David to design furniture for him. Their 1993 wedding at St Margaret’s Westminster was a stellar affair attended by 650 guests, including Elton John, the Aga Khan and King Constantine II of Greece, alongside the British Royal Family. They settled in London, where Margarita spent her early life, with weekends in Gloucestershire on the Bamfords’ Daylesford estate, and she has always remained close to her maternal grandparents – the earl and his equestrian ex-wife, Virginia Freeman-Jackson. ‘My grandmother was a very natural, very talented rider,’ she says. ‘Anyone is thrown on a horse in Ireland at the age of zero.’
Lady Margarita Armstrong-Jones attended Garden House, the good-manners prep school near the family home in Chelsea, then the leading Catholic boarding school St Mary’s Ascot, but it didn’t suit her. She moved to Tudor Hall at the end of Year Nine. ‘St Mary’s Ascot wasn’t very me,’ she says. ‘It’s one of those schools where you mould to it rather than it moulds to you, whereas Tudor Hall was the opposite. It was the most fun. You can really become your own person there. I’ve got the closest friends from both schools, but Tudor Hall was just heaven.’ For A-levels, Margarita studied photography, history of art and jewellery design: ‘I loved all of them, [they were] really interesting.’
School days behind her, she moved on to Oxford Brookes University, initially studying photography. But her first year was a Covid year and, like so many other students, she found the experience lowering. ‘[The teaching] went online and when you are doing a creative subject, it’s really hard. I am so un-techy and I didn’t know how to upload the files.’ For her second year, she swapped to events management. ‘I’m always up for trying new things,’ she says. ‘We were thrown in the deep end; we had to plan [pretend] weddings and christenings. I thought it would help me be organised, but calculating how many plates and [sets of] cutlery you need is not the most exciting thing in the world,’ she says, laughing.
An art course followed, and Margarita slowly began to find her niche. ‘[I did] life drawing, pottery and watercolour at a little school near Oxford. It was really fun. They let you play around with your style in life drawing – some of the models would have been really unhappy about it. I used lots of different mediums: I quite liked working in charcoal with a slightly pinkier tinge.’ Then, last summer, she spent five months working at Fiona Finds, an environmentally conscious interior-design shop on Lowndes Street, Chelsea. ‘I loved it,’ she says. ‘[It’s] lovely to be surrounded by beautiful things all day. I used to cycle into work on my old bike – with its baskets that look like saddlebags.’ A cycling aesthete, she is very much her father’s daughter: there was the minor health-and-safety furore that ensued when she was photographed aged four clinging onto him as he took her to school on the back of his bike through rush-hour traffic. Unperturbed, he still cycles around London.
Last September, Margarita moved to Paris in pursuit of her next creative steps. There, she is clearly embracing life at the craftsmanship-focused Haute École de Joaillerie. By day, she can be found at a 19th-century wooden desk in the Rue du Louvre, wax-carving, stone-setting and designing. ‘I thought that would be the best combination to do, because once you know how to carve in wax, you can then set and design at the same time,’ she says. ‘I know [what I make is] going to be something wacky and bold. I love costume jewellery as well.’ Today, she is wearing tiny, discreet gold hoops and a black cord around one wrist. ‘I just love antique jewellery. It’s so beautiful. [The pieces have] their own stories behind them and a little bit of wear and tear; they are more inventive and have their funny little functions.’
Anne Parsons, Countess of Rosse, who died 31 years ago today, was mother to photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, who wooed Princess Margaret
By night, or weekend, you’ll find Margarita – ‘Mags’ to her friends – hanging out with her flatmates. One, a friend from Tudor Hall school, is an English teacher at a French primary school (she has, says Margarita, ‘the patience of a saint’); the other is studying history of art at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle. The trio are ‘inseparable, which is perfect. People are always coming and going,’ she laughs. And they are real-world girls: ‘I think [social media] can be a big timewaster. People get besotted by it. We come back from work and say, “Right, no phones” and we sit and chat. Morale is always high.’
Aside from creative ambitions, it was a longstanding love of France that led Margarita across the Channel. ‘I speak a little bit of French and I just loved the idea of being in Paris,’ she says. ‘It’s one of my favourite places and having spent a lot of my childhood in France, it reminded me of that, too. That was a very heavenly thing.’ The highlights of Margarita’s childhood were the long summers at Château d’Autet, the ruined hunting lodge her parents restored in the Luberon, Provence. ‘We could run wild and have friends over, it was a very relaxed, beautiful place. It was an old farmhouse – it wasn’t anything crazy – and they turned it into a beautiful house with lots of places for people to stay and have a fun, relaxed time. We spent our days careering around on quad bikes, going to the markets, swimming, walking, [playing] tennis, boules… and [in more recent years] drinking rosé.’
Life in Bastille might be less aimless, but it is fluid and easy, she says: ‘There’s never a plan in Paris. You just can’t. People are here, there, everywhere and everyone is so relaxed.’ Her French is improving, she says, though I suspect she’s being modest. Everyone on her course is French, and she tries to get involved in their conversations ‘every now and then, if I can understand it. The French are really lovely, charming people. They just laugh it off if you get it wrong.’ Days off might be spent at galleries, soaking up ‘inspiration from all the paintings. We went to a war museum opposite the Musée d’Orsay and saw medals that were so old. Tiny medals, so intricate, tied up with a beautiful handwoven silk ribbon.’ Second-hand shops are also a regular draw: ‘They have the most amazing vintage shops and amazing markets there. I love fashion. I have always had an interest in it and I love experimenting with styles. A lot of my friends say, “Mags, can you just pick out something [for me] today” – I do love picking things out and seeing what works together.’
Watch this space: in a few weeks, she has to decide what her next move will be. ‘I am 100 per cent a traveller. I’d like to go to New Zealand,’ she says. But for the moment, she remains Lady Margarita in Paris.
This article was originally published in Tatler’s May issue.
