What did Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, really look like?
A famous ancestor of Princess Diana’s, Georgiana Cavendish was one of the most famous and influential women of late-18th-century Britain. Born Georgiana Spencer in 1757, she became Duchess of Devonshire at just 17 after marrying William Cavendish, and quickly rose to celebrity status. Renowned for her beauty, charm, and wit, she was a major figure in fashionable society, a trendsetter in style, and a powerful political hostess who campaigned openly for the Whig Party. Behind the glamour, however, Georgiana’s life was marked by an unhappy marriage, financial struggles, gambling addiction, and deep emotional pain. She died young, at the age of 48, in 1806 - leaving behind a legacy that blends brilliance, influence, and quiet tragedy.
Horace Walpole described Georgiana as “a phenomenon” of fashion, culture, and sophistication - and she genuinely was.
For more re-creations and her full history, make sure you check out the video here.
The most famous portrait of Georgiana, featuring an enormous menswear-inspired hat.
You can’t talk about what Georgiana looked like without talking about her astonishing trendsetting ability.
Georgiana didn’t just set trends, she invented them. As Dr. Amanda Foreman put it, when Georgiana first came on the scene after marrying the Duke of Devonshire, the close-knit inner circle of British high society were expecting this new, young duchess to make her mark. And she chose to do that with fashion.
At her very first ball post-marriage, she wore six-foot ostrich feathers in her hair, literally sitting on the floor of her carriage on the way to accommodate them.
A newspaper wrote the next day that “Her head was a wonderful exhibition.”
This was such a hit that ostrich feathers suddenly sold out across London. When she tried something new - a new color or even a grey powder in her hair - it was instantly copied. She just had that certain something - that jen a se quois - that made people want to be just like her.
We can also see her humor on full display in her fashion - historian Amanda Foreman recalled that Georgaina would wear a locket around her neck, like a cat collar, that said something like “If found lost, return to the Duke of Devonshire.”
Keira Knightley, who plays Georgiana in the movie The Duchess, wears a military-inspired dress.
The best known portrait of Georgiana features her outrageous fashion, with this huge, menswear-inspired hat. After accompanying her husband to military training camps, she also adopted military elements in her personal fashion.
She also popularized the simple muslin dress called a robe en chemise in England, after her friend Marie Antoinette sent her one. You might recognize this style of dress from this famous portrait of Marie.
Georgiana had many portraits painted during her lifetime, even as a little girl. We can see her natural dark blonde hair and light brown eyes. I also appreciate that she kept her eyebrows naturally full through her life, instead of plucking them thinly like other fashionable ladies of the period.
She does look a little different in each portrait. Thomas Gainsborough painted her many times, and while he was a wonderful artist he did lean towards painting features a little abstractly. She has a beautiful, angular face in her youth, and it gets more full and rounded as she ages. I made my re-creation from a portrait of her made in 1783, when she would have been 26.
So let’s take a look at the re-creation, now:
