Lady Helen Marina Lucy Taylor is the second child and only daughter of HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and Katharine Worsley. She was born on April 28, 1964, the third of the four royal babies born that year.
She was born at Coppins, in Iver, Buckinghamshire, which belonged to her father, the Duke of Kent, elder son of the late HRH Prince George, Duke of Kent, and HRH Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark. Lady Helen weighed 7lbs 8 ozs and was born at 10:30 p.m. The Duke of Kent was not present for the birth as he was stationed with his regiment in Germany. The Duke was a Captain in the Royal Scots Greys.
He learned about the birth from a telephone call from his mother, Princess Marina. The Duke of Kent saw his daughter for the first time the next day after he flew from Germany to London Airport, where he was driven to Coppins.
The new baby's baptism was held in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle on June 6. Her godparents were Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, the Hon. Angus Ogilvy, Mrs. David Butter (Myra Wernher), and Sir Philip Hay. The Dean of Windsor was assisted by the Rev. T.E.F Coulson, Vicar of Iver.
She was named for her paternal great-grandmother, Grand Duchess Helen Vladimirovna of Russia, her paternal grandmother, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, and her mother, whose middle name is Lucy. Helen has two brothers, George, Earl of St. Andrews(1962) and Lord Nicholas Windsor (1970.)
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Lady Helen was a student at St. Mary's Wantage, before finishing her formal education as one of 20 female six-formers at the "robustly masculine of Gordonstoun," where her cousin, Prince Edward, was a contemporary, The youngest son of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Edward was the second of the four 1964 babies. She has remained "best chums" with Lady Sarah Chatto, the last of the 1964 royal births.
In 1983, she moved into a £180,000 flat in Ebury Street with Arabella Cobbold, one of her St, Mary schoolmates, in Ebury Street. One of her first jobs was with Christie's, "working at the front desk for £60 a week. A year later, she spent time with a family in France, where she improved her French. "My French is reasonable, but, yes, my father speaks good French." At the time, Lady Helen, then 20, worked in a Mayfair art gallery. Although the "idea [living in France with a family] is very vague at the moment," she added: "All I can say is that I am not quitting the art world whatever happens."
She was promoted to Technical Assistant in Christie's Contemporary Art Department and transferred to their auction house in New York City, where she spent four months before returning to London.
Helen joined Karsten Schubert Gallery in 1988. By 1991, Lady Helen was a Director of the Karsten Schubert Gallery, a "beatific English Rose among the surly, Disque-Bleu-smoking crowd."
She was determined to succeed in the art world. "I am very serious about my career. It is the most important thing in my life. I need to earn my own living and I'm prepared to work hard for it, " she said in 1988. "I am definitely not thinking of settling down with and having children. I am far too young and I have a lot to do before then."
"I've been in the art world for about seven years now, " Lady Helen said in 1991, "and my aim was always to end up part running a small gallery -- there are only three people here -- being the sort of second in command-indispensable person working with young artists and some established ones. That's exactly what I am doing now so I don't know what comes next. It's just perfect for me."
Although she acknowledged in a TV interview that she turned down representing Damien Hirst, she is responsible for discovering British artists Rachel Whiteread and Gary Hume.
One of her long-term boyfriends was David Flint Wood, later the partner of India Hicks, Helen's relationship with David lasted for nearly five years. A friend told Tatler in 1991: "David was obsessed with Helen. He was jealous of anyone else being friends with her. That's why I was so pleased when she met Tim [Taylor], He's so much less oppressive. And he's cleverer too because he gives her her freedom. It's a much healthier relationship."
Lady Helen met Tim Taylor, a London art dealer, in New York City There was "an instant chemistry between them." In September 1990, the couple celebrated two years together with a trip to Linville, North Carolina, near the Great Smokey Mountains, where Helen was photographed wearing a Stars and Stripes bikini. Taylor, described as "pushy but talented," worked for the Bernard Jacobson Gallery in Mayfair before he was "poached by the powerful figure of millionaire Leslie Waddington," who owned four West End galleries."
Lady Helen and Tim Taylor's engagement was announced on January 7, 1992. The couple met the press in the "book-lined drawing room of her parents' apartment in St. James's Palace. Lady Helen, proudly showed off her "large square cut emerald engagement ring."
The ring was a Taylor family heirloom.
She told the reporters: "As you can imagine I feel very, very happy." Tim added: "We are extremely happy." Lady Helen declined to say where Tim proposed, "We have to have some secrets."
Their marriage was celebrated at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on June 16, 1992. It was the first royal wedding there since 1905 when Princess Margaret of Connaught married the future King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden. The bride wore a Catherine Walker gown and a diamond tiara, worn by the Duchess of Kent at her wedding in 1961.
The reception was held at the Duke and Duchess of Kent's Oxfordshire home.
In October 1992, Lady Helen quit her job at Karsten Schubert Gallery as she hoped to start a family. It was not until February 1994, that she announced "Yes, I'm pregnant -- and I'm absolutely delighted."
The couple's first child, Columbus George Donald Taylor, was born a month prematurely, on August 6, 1994, at London's Portland Hospital. There was no immediate explanation for the baby's unusual first name. The Duke of Kent's spokesman said. "They chose it because it was a name they both liked. But the reason they both liked it will remain private."
A few days after Columbus' birth, Daily Express correspondent, Ross Benson wrote: "Columbus, I can disclose, was the name of the cherished gundog acquired by Helen's father, the Duke of Kent, in 1957 The damp-nosed golden-haired Labrador quickly became a firm favorite with the young Windsors. He took a particular shine to Helen when she arrived in 1964."
Columbus was christened in the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace on December 19, 1994. Lady Helen and her husband chose not to release any details about the ceremony, as it was "definitely a family affair."
A second son, Cassius Edward, was born "a little early" on December 26, 1996. Helen had been expected to give birth in February 1997.
The Timothy Taylor Gallery opened in Mayfair in 1996. Twenty years later, he opened his first gallery in NYC, followed in 2023 by a flagship space at 74 Leonard Street in Tribeca. In 1998, after 6 months of chemotherapy, Tim was declared cancer free, after battling Hodgkins' Disease.
After her marriage, Lady Helen became the muse to several fashion designers. In 1999, she "packed up all of her old clothing" to wear only Calvin Klein, "down to the underwear."
"And I had some lovely things," she said at the time. "If Calvin dresses me up in beautiful clothes, I feel I can do anything. Her official title was consultant and ambassador to Calvin Klein. The relationship with Klein came to a "natural end" when he sold his business nearly two years later.
Before she signed with Calvin Klein, she had an informal arrangement with Giorgio Armani. "Armani were very kind, and we had an informal arrangement that I could borrow things."
In January 2000, Lady Helen was profiled in Harpers & Queen magazine where she discussed the "balancing act as a working mother."
Her two sons were five and two at the time of the interview. "The children take up a lot of my time and that took a bit of getting used to. But, once you accept that is the way it is, it's very fulfilling. I'm lucky in that I have a good nanny and a good granny -- my mother-in-law is an enormous help."
Tim's bout with cancer "made them both more health-conscious." Lady Helen said: "I love food - I'm very greedy, and I like to cook -- but since Tom's illness we pay more attention to what we eat. He prefers meat, while I'm more of a fish person."
She noted her attention to fashion was a "comparatively recent development." It was not until she was in her late 20s that she "began to develop a style of my own."
"Both Armani and Calvin Klein make the sort of clothes you look forward to putting on. I have a long navy-blue Armani evening dress, for example, that I've had for six years, and I wear it time and time again; and I have a number of Calvin Klein clothes that are a pleasure to wear."
In 2000, Lady Helen was also profiled by British Vogue, which confirmed she had been "contracted by Armani as the company's representative in London."
Lady Helen told the magazine: "Armani approached me when the first Emporio opened in London and Mr. Armani was incredibly generous to me. Whenever I had to go to some function, they would try and help me out. I suppose I was 23 or 24 at the time and didn't really have much sense of style. He really helped define that. I realized what suited me best was a simple minimal style approach to dressing."
It was Calvin Klein who "spotted the potential in Helen." She was offered a "lucrative contract" to wear Calvin Klein all the time, but when that arrangement ended, Helen "returned to the Armani fold." This time, however, "formally employed to wear Armani from head to toe, day and night."
Helen's life. according to British Vogue, has been "imbued by a social position and the privileges that come with it. "I like to think Armani and Bulgari want me, the individual. It's not just about the family I come from."
Lady Helen and her husband had discussed having another child after the birth of Cassius. Tim's cancer diagnosis and the intensive chemotherapy treatment that followed put their decision on hold. "We decided we wanted to wait until Tim had been given the all-clear for two years. And then, there was the consideration that the boys, eight and six, have a certain independence and maybe it was easier to keep things as they were."
Eloise Olivia Katherine Taylor was born on March 2, 2003. Lady Helen called Eloise a "miracle birth."
She told Majesty's Ingrid Seward: "But it's lovely for the boys to have a little sister -- they can't stop kissing her and touching her. They adore her -- and I'm hoping she will have a civilising effect on them, just as I did with my brothers."
Lady Helen also said that motherhood made her more confident. "Everyone lacks confidence at some point in their lives but being a mother has put a lot of things in perspective for me."
Her husband's illness also took its toll. "I wouldn't say that I cracked, but about a year after Tim's treatment finished, I realized what we had been through and that I had been holding it together for everyone. I allowed myself some moments of weakness at that point." In a 2001 interview with Tatler (an Armani fashion shoot), she described how her husband discovered the "ominous-looking lump in his neck."
"One moment the lump wasn't there, the next it was. It just came up so fast. Tim felt it wasn't right, the size of it, and went straight to the doctor. We were told that many go into denial, ignore it, and the consequences can be fatal.
"Suddenly, this man who's a pillar of strength in our relationship and upon whom I depended, was weaker. I had to move into the motherly/nurse role and that flips the relationship quite a bit. I like to be dependent on my husband. For that period of time, I couldn't be, and so you have to balance all that up in your head. It was also horrible for Columbus to see his father get ill and his hair fall out. He was just old enough to be very sensitive about it."
She also spoke about the support she received from her parents. "Dad gave me extraordinary strength. He was just there. I could feel how he felt pain for me. You don't want to see your child have an unhappy time. Sometimes things don't need to be said. You know your parents are there for you. My mother has a good and open heart and talked, listened, and supported. She is good at that with people who are needy."
Helen also said: "I'm quite good at blanking things out in that very English way. Certainly, I've turned to prayer in times of crisis, when friends have died, or when Tim was ill."
A month after Eloise's birth, Lady Helen lost her £500,00 contract with Bulgari. She was dropped because Bulgari's "tumbling share price" dropped by 50%. During her three-year contract with Bulgari, Lady Helen earned £1.5 million.
Only a few weeks before her Bulagari contract ended, Lady Helen was in Edinburgh for Emporio Armani's launch, where she spoke about her "highly-lucrative part-time career. "It is an absolute dream to have a job like this. I travel a lot and I'm able to spend the majority of my time with my children. I am totally involved in their lives. I am very lucky. A lot of my friends are really jealous - but I lend them clothes, so not too jealous."
A second daughter -- and fourth child - Estella Olga Elizabeth Taylor was born on December 21, 2004. Lady Helen was in her 41st year when she gave birth to Estella. According to a friend, Helen was "thrilled" to be expecting again. "It came as a wonderful surprise."
All four of Lady Helen's children were born prematurely. Lady Helen was induced at 36 weeks as Eloise was in distress as she suffered from obstetric cholestasis, a disorder affecting the mother-to-be's liver in the final trimester.
After the birth of Estella, Lady Helen told Hello: "I have become a lot closer to my mother since I had children. I gave a better understanding of what it means to be a parent and I am much for forgiving. You realize how difficult it is. You understand that parents are only human and are learning as they go along."
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Lady Helen's contract with Armani ended in June 2009. "From Armani's perspective, there is a recession and it becomes harder to justify the expense of having fashion ambassadors. The relationship has been there so long there is less impact now for people to see Lady Helen wearing Armani, a source for Armani told the Mail on Sunday.
A few weeks later, in an interview with The Lady magazine, Lady Helen said "There's really a limit to how many navy jackets and white shirts you can wear in a year. It worked really well for 10 years and it was great not having to choose. But it came to a natural end and I've moved on."
Lady Helen was the Patron of CLIC Sargent, a cancer charity, previously known as the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children, whose patron was the late Diana, Princess of Wales. In 2021, the charity's name was changed to Young Lives vs. Cancer. She is no longer the charity's patron nor a Trustee of the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, although numerous websites still include this information.
In June Lady Helen and Tim Taylor will celebrate their 32nd anniversary. "When you have children and a career you have to consciously make an effort to make time for each other. You can't ever sit back. Marriage is a serious commitment and you have to give it your all, all the time, " Lady Helen told Hello in May 2005. She also spoke about her upbringing. "My parents gave us a normal family life. Yes, I have had a privileged upbringing but I had to make my own way in life. I got my first job when I was 19 and everything we have now is what Tim and I have worked for together. I have a lot and I am very lucky.
According to Tatler magazine, Lady Helen's 60th birthday was celebrated privately, "dining in a marquee tent decorated with fairy lights and flowers. The party was attended by her family and friends.
Columbus Taylor, 28, is the Associate Director of Timothy Taylor Gallery in New York. Cassius, 27, is the co-founder (with Harry Illsley) of telltale, which "provides curatorial, marketing and programming advice, so that projects may fully utilise target demographics and current styles." Eloise 21, is a student at the University of Manchester. 19-year-old Estella and her sister Eloise and cousin Lady Margarita Armstrong-Jones attended Garden House School.
https://telltale-events.co.uk/
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2 comments:
Very interesting .
Cu
Andrea
Often seen her supporting her father at events. They seem very close. Love that her son is named after a favorite dog.
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