Lucy Birley: Model, photographer and pro-hunting campaigner

Immortalised in music as Bryan Ferry’s muse and credited by fashion greats as their inspiration, the convent-educated daughter of a wealthy bloodstock agent preferred a much simpler existence

Lucy Birley had a successful creative life of her own (Alamy)

As muse to Bryan Ferry, Lucy Birley was the inspiration for some of the most enduring love songs of the eighties and nineties. Immortalised in music and photographed in true iconic style by Mapplethorpe, model Birley also inspired some of fashion’s greats.

Christian Lacroix, milliner Philip Treacy and king of shoe-designers, Manolo Blahnik, have all credited Birley with influencing their work. Alexander McQueen and stylist Isabella Blow were her close friends.

Covent-educated Birley was born Lucy Margaret Mary Helmore. Her father Patrick Helmore was a wealthy bloodstock agent and Lloyd’s underwriter. A keen horsewoman, Birley hunted from the age of 12. She was already a successful model when she met Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry. In 1982, she was photographed for the cover of Avalon, Roxy Music’s final album. Later that same year she and Ferry were married.


 Birley inspired many of Bryan Ferry’s enduring love songs 
 (Rex Features)

Though 14 years her husband’s junior, Birley is credited with helping Ferry overcome an addiction to cocaine. She joined him on tour and provided inspiration for his solo work. Together they had four sons: Merlin, Isaac, Tara and Otis. However Ferry’s workaholic tendencies and Birley’s own struggles with addiction put a strain on their marriage. Though Birley stopped drinking in 1993, she told the BBC that the moment of truth came in 2000 when the Ferry family was caught in a midair drama en route to Nairobi. A crazed passenger stormed the cockpit of their plane and nearly caused it to crash. Birley said: “It was a moment when I reassessed my life.”

In 2003, Birley and Ferry divorced. Three years later, she married second husband, club-owner Robin Birley, son of Annabel’s founder Mark Birley and stepson of the late James Goldsmith.

Away from the rock and roll whirl of her first marriage, Birley preferred a simpler existence, saying: “I suppose I do spend as much time as I can with horses and dogs. I can’t understand people who don’t like to be alone.”

Despite her preference for the quiet life, Birley still hit the headlines. In 2004, she was fined for willful obstruction during an anti-hunting protest. Caught in a traffic jam caused by protestors, Birley abandoned her car in Parliament Square, in full view of the police.

Birley had little time for protests against hunting. When her pro-hunting son Otis stormed the House of Commons during a parliamentary debate, he had her full support. As he did again in 2008, when he spent four months on remand, charged with perverting the course of justice for allegedly approaching a witness while awaiting trial for common assault on two hunt saboteurs.

After the furore surrounding her son, Birley took a step back from public life, telling The Guardian, “I didn’t want to be put in the spotlight. My family’s attitude to the press and publicity was very much that it was frowned upon. You only appeared in papers if you were born, married or had died…”

​Birley once said of her first husband: “If you’re married to an artist, their creativity always has to come first.” But Birley had a successful creative life of her own. She wrote poetry and studied photography. She photographed Rupert Everett, John Galliano, Damien Hirst and Jasper Johns. In 2011, she held an exhibition of her photography, which included portraits of her gilded set. She was part of a creative social clique that was beset by tragedy. Her close friends McQueen and Blow both took their own lives. Earlier this year, she lost another friend in Annabelle Neilson, who was McQueen’s muse.

Birley died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while on holiday in County Clare, Ireland after what her brother Ed Helmore told MailOnline was “a long battle with depression”. Her family released a statement saying she died “surrounded by her beloved dogs, Daisy, Peg and Daphne”.

She is survived by her husband Robin Birley and her sons, Otis Ferry, Tara Ferry, Merlin Ferry, Isaac Ferry.

Lucy Birley, model, photographer and pro-hunting campaigner, born 18 September 1960, died 23 July 2018