Singer, guitarist, and actress Hermione Fatheringale played with David Bowie for a while in Feathers, a multi-media folk-rock group that also included guitarist John Hutchinson, in late 1968 and early 1969. She was also in Turquoise, a similar and extremely short-lived trio, with Bowie and Tony Hill. Feathers did not release any records under that name, but Fatheringale and Hutchinson did play on a couple of unreleased Bowie 1968 tracks, Ching-A-Ling (which eventually came out on the 1984 early Bowie rarities LP Love You Till Tuesday and Back to Where You've Never Been. Hutchinson and Fatheringale also added their voices to a remix of a track from Bowie's 1967 debut album, Sell Me a Coat, which was used for his 1969 short film #Love You Till Tuesday and also came out on the Love You Till Tuesday LP. Fatheringale and Hutchinson also appear in some sequences in the #Love You Till Tuesday film, now available on video.

Feathers broke up after a few months, when Bowie and Farthingale's relationship ended. Farthingale was the obvious inspiration for one of the best songs on Bowie's second album, Letter to Hermione. In an interview with Disc at the time of the LP's release, Bowie had this to say about the song: "I once wrote a letter I never sent to Hermione, who was a dancer with the Lindsay Kemp mime company. I thought I'd record it instead and send her the record." ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi