[1] Her mother, who had lost both parents at an early age, belonged to a family which owned John Summers & Sons, a company operating a steelworks on the Wirral, and was herself a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford.

[2] The family soon moved to the Lake District, where Withers grew up with an older sister and a younger brother on the shores of Derwent Water.

[3] On the home front, Withers joined the London Fire Brigade as a volunteer and acted as a driver to senior officers.

[4] Meanwhile, Harvey Nichols advertised in Vogue "Especially designed gas protection costumes... in oiled silk and available in dawn apricot, amethyst, eau-de-nil and rose pink".

[1] After the end of the world war, Withers promoted advanced causes, and alongside its traditional coverage of beauty and fashion Vogue developed a highbrow streak, publishing articles by Simone de Beauvoir, Bertrand Russell, Marghanita Laski, Dylan Thomas, Kingsley Amis, and work by features editors Lesley Blanch, and later (1947-1955 Siriol Hugh-Jones.

Elizabeth David wrote on food, while the critic Penelope Gilliatt got her start in a Vogue talent contest inaugurated by Withers.

[5] Her personal style was frugal, preferring sandwiches to expensive restaurants and buses to taxis, and she became a member of the Council of Industrial Design.

On 20 February 1953 she married Victor Asarius Kennett (1895–1980), a Russian photographer whom she had first met in New York City during the war.

Many years after her husband's death she published an autobiography called Lifespan (1994) and herself died on 26 October 2001 at St Mary's Hospital, London, aged ninety-six.