Tweed of the Town: Stella Tennant and Isabella Cawdor Hosted a Modern-British Art Cocktail at Sotheby’s London 

Last night, fashion industry veterans and Holland Holland creative directors Stella Tennant and Isabella Cawdor invited friends for dinner and a show: an edit of the stylish duo’s picks of 20th-century art, selected from the upcoming Sotheby’s Modern Post War British Art auction (November 19-20). As their sharp reinvention of the Chanel-owned field brand demonstrates, they are a pair with impeccable taste, but also with one foot in rural, and the other on urban terrains. Their selection did not disappoint, with mesmerizing and diverse pieces from John Piper, Peter Lanyon, Ben Nicholson, and Ivon Hitchens.

“All British artists, no matter how abstract, will incorporate the landscape somehow,” said Sotheby’s Modern-British Art director Simon Hucker in his opening address. “I am a lover of beautiful landscapes that have the power to transport away from routine life—places that inspire and allow me to dream,” said Cawdor of her own taste in art.

Certainly the vibrant tones and textures of the landscapes on the walls were echoed in their tweeds that dressed the room. Lady Laura Burlington, stylist Tom Guinness, and Laura Bailey all embraced the country codes—checks and tweeds—and glamorized them for evening. Tennant herself chose a stylish cream wool Oxford ensemble that may have looked too fine to wear within a mile of bracken, but she assured me that all the pieces are practically rooted in adventure and wilderness. Hers looked particularly Katharine Hepburn–esque with a Hugo Guinness silk scarf and diamond spray earrings last night, but Tennant says that she’ll take great strides in them back home on the Scottish Borders with her brindle whippet Freud.

A supper of halibut with fennel and butternut squash was served as guests including Jonathan and Ronnie Newhouse, Henry, Earl of Glamorgan, and interior designer Fran Hickman all chatted over the bountiful vases of vanda orchids, plum astrantia, and a very on-brand wild heather. The room was also adorned with large-scale, unseen works by British photographer Jamie Hawkesworth, and specially framed for the evening (Hawkesworth also shoots the Holland Holland campaign). “In the contemporary art world, it’s hard to find an artist that’s still alive” joked Hucker, when Tennant and Cawdor pulled in Hawkesworth to work with Sotheby’s on the project.

A roasted quince pavlova added a sweet note to a very British evening.