Christabel Russell, fashion designer

Christabel Russell, fashion designer, Mayfair couturier and wife of John Russell, heir to the Ampthill baronetcy. A popular designer, "whose shop in Curzon Street is the mecca of so many fashionable women" she was the subject of a scandalous divorce case after she gave birth to a baby boy despite denying her husband his conjugal rights since their marriage at the end of the First World War. The Ampthill divorce case, which went into lurid detail about the details of the couple's non-existent sex life, was eventually won by John Russell but Christabel appealed to the High Court and had the verdict over turned. She continued to claim she had never slept with a man and suggested she had become pregnant after sharing her husband's bath water. Geoffrey, the result of the so-called virgin birth, eventually inherited the Ampthill estate

Christabel Couturier Designers Divorce Jul19 Scandal Scandalous

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