Photography: Bella Kotak
Models: Yinsey @tornandpolished Meg @meg.lara.atelier Scarlett @scarlett.zc
Hair: Netty @nettgray
Dresses: Meg @meg.lara.atelier
Crowns & Headpieces: @mrmortimerswife
Retouching polish: Pratik Naik @solsticeretouch
Videography: Richard Wakefield @richardwakefield
Color toning: @only.thecurious
What’s more alluring than a castle? The ruin of a castle, I’d say. Especially one that sits squarely in the picturesque Cotswolds—what some people call England’s prettiest district—and rises from the emerald grass along the poetically named River Windrush.
Welcome to Minster Lovell Hall, where magic, medievalism, and the natural world are entwined in the most fairy-tale setting we’ve ever seen. The woods around have advanced over the centuries to caress the walls with their leaves, even embrace the stones with their roots and branches.
The whole place stirs the imagination and excites the curiosity. Have the trees simply swallowed that chapel, or are the stones morphing into trees as we speak? If you’re anything like Scarlett, Meg, and Yinsey, the three vivid princesses of this issue’s cover shoot, you will not be able to resist finding out. So follow our beauties through a gothic portal into a vast world of history, creation, and re-creation. Explore the dry facts of the place, as well as its bloody legends. Tell stories, read stories—comfort each other when the stories are mind-bogglingly wild—and shape your own tale.
Bella Kotak, the photographer who recorded our princesses’ exploration, says these sumptuous images resulted from a remarkable collaboration behind and in front of the camera. She sees her own role as “the witness entrusted to translate our shared vision into images of another world.”
As with some of our most memorable photo shoots, this one began with spectacular clothes. Meg Lara—doing double duty as costume designer and a curious princess herself—cut apart secondhand garments and hand-stitched them into medieval-inspired fantasies. Meg’s aesthetic tells several stories at once, beginning with eco-conscious reinvention and sustainability. Every element gets a transformation that echoes the metamorphosis of the Hall itself. Hair by Annette Gray, ornamented with accessories by Mr. Mortimer’s Wife, completed the looks.
“In our tale,” Bella explains, “the princesses represent the daughters of a forgotten house, guardians of memories, and lingering echoes of a time long past. They show how history lives on through us, how curiosity invites us to learn, and how art can become a bridge between time and story.”
That’s how we’d describe the appeal of Minster Lovell Hall itself. The first hall here was built in the 1100s; what we see now are the remains of a much grander edifice built in the 1430s.
What changes have these stones seen in 900 years? The children who have grown up, the lovers who have trysted … the banquets, the arguments, the stories of history.
The princesses gather under an ancient tree to read the history of Minster Lovell, discovering that this now-quiet spot may have played a role in the War of the Roses. King Richard III (known as Crookback and, perhaps unfairly, the villainous murderer of the princes in the Tower) is said to have dined here with his friend and ally Francis, the first Viscount Lovell (1456–87). They were on the wrong side of the War of the Roses. Richard was killed in battle in 1485; Francis escaped to fight the reigning Tudors for two more years, then disappeared in 1487—albeit perhaps not for good.
One legend drives our curious princesses to set down the history book and explore the heart of the Hall: It’s said that in 1718, a skeleton was found in the basement, identified as Francis Lovell himself. The story goes that he went into hiding after the disastrous Battle of Stoke, then hid for years while a faithful servant brought him meals. His cause of death was starvation, which set in after the servant stopped coming.
Captivated by the mystery, our heroines hunt high and low for clues. So what if they never find the truth behind the dramatic tale? It’s a glorious undertaking, to puzzle out fact from fiction—and then embrace the fiction anyway, because there’s a ring of truth (or its cousin, authenticity) to a tale that surpasses even the importance of verifiable fact.
So it happens that our creatively curious princesses weave themselves into the Hall’s tapestry. They’re the colorful threads, the bright glints of gold, the animating spirits and muses that transport us into an exciting past. Here the truth might be more lurid than fiction, and no one who steps through an archway emerges unchanged. Stories are stronger than mortar.
Our tales hold the ever-changing world together. They make it whole; they make it sing. This season, let your curiosity lead you to the inspiration that will change you too. Always for the better.
