The Duke of Richmond on the joys of hand-me-down style: ‘My son still wears my father’s shoes’

Sixty-nine-year-old Charles Gordon-Lennox, the 11th Duke of Richmond, is known for cutting a dapper silhouette. “I’m not a big fan of men’s casual kit,” he admits. “I just don’t think it looks great. I don’t love a pair of trainers, let’s put it like that…” 

I’m speaking to His Grace (dressed in a rather splendid 20-year-old suit) ahead of the first ever “Future of Vintage” summit, which he is hosting at home on the Goodwood Estate this week, having invited notaries and influencers like Paula Sutton of Hill House Vintage and Known Source’s Henry McNeill-Njoku and Theo El-Kattan to join him to discuss pre-loved fashion. On the agenda are topics including authentication, availability and investment, as well as the hurdles facing the industry and what can be done to help overcome them.

The summit comes at an interesting juncture for vintage fashion. During awards season, archival pieces were everywhere on the red carpet: Sydney Sweeney wore Angelina Jolie’s 2004 Marc Bouwer dress to the Vanity Fair Oscars After Party, while Jennifer Lawrence co-opted a Givenchy by John Galliano dress once worn by Kate Moss for the same event. Even the high priestess of fashion, Dame Anna Wintour, has given the movement her seal of approval via the next Met Gala theme, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”, which will see scores of celebrities wearing vintage pieces from the likes of Balenciaga and Dior. And while most of us don’t typically have access to say, 1970s Yves Saint Laurent, that’s not to say that there aren’t some fantastic pieces available to buy second-hand.

For the Duke it’s about repositioning vintage. It’s no longer something that smells a bit musty and has been left unloved in a charity shop. Rather, it’s well-designed pieces that were made to last. “Vintage clothing must be great quality if it’s lasted all that time,” the Duke says. “I’ve got some suits that are 30 years old. It’s about self-expression, rather than ‘dressing up’, and it’s the joy of something having history and stories to tell.” 

His fellow Summit attendee Paula Sutton, who has become a social media star thanks to her penchant for vintage, agrees: “I’ve got jackets that are 30, 40, 50, 60 years old and not one seam is out of the place, the shape is intact,” she says. “Buttons can always be redone, but look for durable fabrics like tweed and wool, and check for stains and things that can’t be so easily repaired.”

Naturally, the sustainability argument also comes into it – a major concern for Gen Z especially. “It’s a virtuous choice as much as it is a sartorial one,” agrees His Grace. “Second-hand is now a good thing. It’s a cool thing, a responsible thing.” 

“Encouraging people to buy more is incredibly damaging,” adds Sutton. “Learning about how to make sustainable choices is so important, as well as normalising that you can rewear and recycle.” 

Though he’s more closely associated with racing, the Duke’s championing of vintage fashion makes a lot of sense. In 1998, he relaunched the Goodwood Motor Circuit with Revival, 32 years after the last engines revved under his grandfather’s tenure. When somebody suggested that the event – which focuses on vintage cars from the festival’s heyday in 1948-1966 – should also encourage guests to dress appropriately, some people weren’t immediately convinced. 

“It was considered a really bad idea by a lot of people,” shares the Duke. “But it’s turned out to be an amazing thing. I remember in the first couple of years we did it, people didn’t want to go home. They didn’t want to go back over the threshold and experience the real world, they wanted to stay in this little bubble.”  

The Duke concedes that they were lucky that the 1940s-1960s had some of the greatest fashion going. “That moment in the 50s where it all started to get a bit madder, music started to play more of a part, men’s suits became a bit more flamboyant – that was a great time,” he muses. “Women’s dresses and men’s suits from that post-war period inherently made everyone look great. I got quite a few suits made out of vintage 1950s fabric.”

His everyday uniform is a suit and if he could wear the fashions of any other era now, it would be the 18th century – though he does confess to being a follower of fashion growing up. “Now I wear a suit every day, it’s the most comfortable thing for me,” he explains. “Very high trousers, so there’s nothing tight around your waist, and it’s very warm.” 

It’s also about supporting traditional trades.“If you’re lucky enough to have something made for you it just feels entirely different and looks very elegant,” he argues. “I’ve got three sons and they all enjoy having something made. It’s such a special experience, the amount of craftsmanship that goes into it and all those things are dying out and we need to keep them going. I’d love to be able to make shoes, or cut a suit myself. The skill of being able to do that is an incredible skill.” 

Growing up, the Duke’s mother Susan was a keen dressmaker (“she had lots of those Butterick paper patterns”) and knitted, though she didn’t make clothes for him. One of his earliest fashion memories relates to his grandmother: “For my eighth birthday she gave me a very grown-up cream silk shirt and a cashmere cardigan from a children’s shop on Bond Street. I felt like I was 21, not 8.” 

But it is a piece once owned by his grandfather, the ninth Duke, which perhaps has the most sentimental value to him. “I’ve got a little scarf that my grandfather used to race in,” he shares. “He wore white overalls with a white shirt, a tie, a pin, and then the whole thing was pulled together by a rather rough belt. It was quite a strong look. To finish everything off he’d wear the family Gordon tartan on a printed silk scarf. It’s basically in shreds now but I’ve still got it.” In fact, so inspired was he by the scarf that he asked Italian designer E.Marinella, who he says make the best ties (“I’m wearing one now, in fact”), to remake it for the anniversary of Revival. He also had several jackets made for it, based on 1950s designs. 

Now, his three grown-up sons, Charles, William and Frederick, all raid his wardrobe. “My eldest son also wears all my father’s shoes,” he laughs. “That’s the joy of handmade men’s clothes, you can alter them to death, so providing you’re on the larger side your children can wear them.” Meanwhile his wife, the Hon Janet Astor, is lucky enough to have inherited dresses worn by her mother, Bronwen, who was the muse of Pierre Balmain in the 1950s. “She had a fantastic collection of vintage kit,” says the Duke. “We’ve got some of that and my wife wears some of it at Revival.” 

When I ask the Duke about his legacy, and if he’d like it to encourage a more sustainable way of life, he’s modest. “The sustainability argument for what we’re doing is huge,” he concludes. “The vision is that we can become a bit of a platform for people who really champion this sustainable way of dressing and I think that’s a really positive thing.”