Meredith Dups was born in Barmouth, Wales, on 30 January 1946,[1] and grew up in Kent.
[3][1][2] After relocating back to London in the early 1980s, she wrote for a wide range of publications including The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The New York Times, before taking the post of Deputy and Features editor at Harpers & Queen in 1983.
[1] Whilst at Christie's, Etherington-Smith worked with Diana, Princess of Wales regarding the charity auction of her clothes in 1997, and also curated the 1999 sale of Marilyn Monroe's clothing and personal effects and the 2011 auction of Elizabeth Taylor's wardrobe and jewels.
[5] As a biographer Etherington-Smith has written about the fashion designer Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon and her sister, novelist Elinor Glyn in The "It" Girls; and about Salvador Dalí in The Persistence of Memory, which was translated into twelve languages.
[3] A longtime smoker, Etherington-Smith died from a heart attack at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 25 January 2020, at the age of 73.