Alice Temperley is the designer of choice for A-listers in search of a premiere gown
Pippa Middleton’s emerald dress caused a sensation at the Royal Wedding evening do, but designing it was surprisingly ‘stress-free’ for A-list go-to girl Alice Temperley (right). In her first interview since the Big Day, she talks to Annabel Rivkin about her starriest commission ever
Royal wedding was the biggest fashion show that the world has ever seen. The television coverage was watched by billions – much of it looped continually in a Groundhog Day-style show of international hysteria – and the photographs will run and run. Unusually, the intensity of the build-up did not eclipse the thrill of the reveal.
This time, the wedding dress was not the only point of interest – speculation regarding maid of honour Pippa Middleton’s dress gathered energy early, too. And when Pippa emerged at Westminster Abbey, irreproachable but hot as Hades in figure-skimming McQueen, she found herself at the centre of a fashion furore.
The foxy, nouveau Sloane sister had nailed it for the ceremony but, released from formal MoH duties, what would she wear for the evening reception where she would dance and flirt in a disco-balled Throne Room away from the whole world’s gaze?
Of all the labels in all of Albion, she chose Temperley London, the British design house just entering its second decade; defined by a detailed, slightly bohemian aesthetic and beloved of A-listers from Rihanna to Gwyneth Paltrow. Pippa’s frock was green and suitably slinky. Naturally, Alice Temperley kept firmly shtoom about her involvement in the royal wedding despite frenzied conjecture (from the outset she was mooted as a potential designer of The Dress).
‘Part of the business is discretion,’ she says, her bitten-down finger nubs fiddling with the big vintage rings that weigh down her hands. We are sitting at the kitchen table of the Temperley HQ, a row of warren-like mews houses in the smart part of Notting Hill with a Union Jack painted across the entire façade. She, her husband Lars von Bennigsen and their two-year-old son Fox live not only above the shop but above the studio, offices and cutting rooms.
Mismatched china fills cabinets, spring flowers are dotted about in vintage vases, candles flicker in the sunlight as the designer (faded red lipstick, embroidered cream blouse from her own label, leather jerkin and skirt from her diffusion line, Alice by Temperley) elaborates on the lengths that can be taken to avoid unwanted attention. ‘We had to take the skylights on the building out so that people could enter across the roof without being seen,’ she says. ‘It’s very private here, so people feel comfortable.’
Royal wedding was the biggest fashion show that the world has ever seen. The television coverage was watched by billions – much of it looped continually in a Groundhog Day-style show of international hysteria – and the photographs will run and run. Unusually, the intensity of the build-up did not eclipse the thrill of the reveal.
This time, the wedding dress was not the only point of interest – speculation regarding maid of honour Pippa Middleton’s dress gathered energy early, too. And when Pippa emerged at Westminster Abbey, irreproachable but hot as Hades in figure-skimming McQueen, she found herself at the centre of a fashion furore.
The foxy, nouveau Sloane sister had nailed it for the ceremony but, released from formal MoH duties, what would she wear for the evening reception where she would dance and flirt in a disco-balled Throne Room away from the whole world’s gaze?
Of all the labels in all of Albion, she chose Temperley London, the British design house just entering its second decade; defined by a detailed, slightly bohemian aesthetic and beloved of A-listers from Rihanna to Gwyneth Paltrow. Pippa’s frock was green and suitably slinky. Naturally, Alice Temperley kept firmly shtoom about her involvement in the royal wedding despite frenzied conjecture (from the outset she was mooted as a potential designer of The Dress).
‘Part of the business is discretion,’ she says, her bitten-down finger nubs fiddling with the big vintage rings that weigh down her hands. We are sitting at the kitchen table of the Temperley HQ, a row of warren-like mews houses in the smart part of Notting Hill with a Union Jack painted across the entire façade. She, her husband Lars von Bennigsen and their two-year-old son Fox live not only above the shop but above the studio, offices and cutting rooms.
Mismatched china fills cabinets, spring flowers are dotted about in vintage vases, candles flicker in the sunlight as the designer (faded red lipstick, embroidered cream blouse from her own label, leather jerkin and skirt from her diffusion line, Alice by Temperley) elaborates on the lengths that can be taken to avoid unwanted attention. ‘We had to take the skylights on the building out so that people could enter across the roof without being seen,’ she says. ‘It’s very private here, so people feel comfortable.’
From left: Pippa Middleton in that showstopping dress; the Duchess of Cambridge wore one of Alice's designs to a charity event last December
Alice meets Pippa and Carole Middleton before the wedding
The build-up to the wedding was, according to Alice, unremarkable. ‘It was quite quick and organic and natural, with no stress,’ she says. ‘They (the Middletons) are lovely people and really nice to work with. It was easy.’
Alice herself is unmoved by preciousness. A liberal upbringing (as the eldest of four children on her parents’ Somerset cider farm) ensures that she is not a highly strung urban animal.
‘A lot of self-importance goes on in the fashion industry,’ she says. ‘I’m not like that. I like to be real. I don’t like things to be staged or fussy. It should be natural and that’s how I like women to look. I like them to feel comfortable and look organic.’
A product of her roots, 36-year-old Alice is informal and free with a reassuringly bucolic air.
‘We were brought up very liberally,’ she says. ‘We weren’t confined in any way so we were always on the moors or riding or making dens. I had to milk a goat every morning to get milk for my cereal.’ She would often be caught with a pair of scissors in her hand having experimentally attacked one of her mother’s Chinese silk shawls.
By the age of 12 she was making jewellery and selling it locally. An enduring theme of her work is her willingness to embrace the commercial aspect of the fashion business. British fashion is constantly lauded for its innovation and creativity, but sometimes lambasted for its lack of commercial savvy. ‘To be able to exist you have to sell,’ she says.
‘The Middletons are very good as a unit. You can tell they are close’
Alice moved to London to study textiles at Central St Martins College of Art & Design and went on to do a master’s degree at the Royal College of Art, all the while selling embroidered leather jackets and dresses to pay her bills. It was during a stint of waitressing at the Met bar in 1998 that she met Lars, who was then a banker and is now her business partner (they had a 1920s-themed wedding in Somerset in 2002). Her sister Mary is Temperley’s head of sales.
‘I was naive but determined when I started, and when Lars joined he helped formalise and structure the business. Having my sister by my side was nice too because we trust each other and work with a similar focus. The business is a tight group of people giving it everything, which is why I think it has been a success. Fashion moves so quickly that, unless you have a strong point of view, you can lose integrity.’
Famous fans wearing Temperley London
From left: Sophie Dahl, pictured with husband Jamie Cullum; Laura Bailey (right, with Alice); Eva Mendes
From lett: Fearne Cotton, Emma Roberts; Kate Beckinsale
Apart from the sheer prettiness of the clothes and the eccentric sense of Britishness that they convey, perhaps the label’s backdrop of family values attracted Pippa to the brand. ‘They are very good as a family unit. You can tell they are very close, and it was nice because my sister and I were at all the meetings. It was like a family coming into a family,’ says Alice.
‘Of course it’s amazing that everyone has now seen the dress and it has been everywhere, but I treated it completely normally: it was a beautiful girl coming in and us making a dress that looked fantastic on her. The dress was based on one of our designs that she loved, so we redesigned and refitted it. It was a satin chiffon in emerald green. The back was very open with a T-bar and cross straps, and it was all done with crystal, gold and silver detailing – very low and very sexy.’
Of course Pippa’s patronage is a lovely thing, but Temperley London is no fledgling in need of benefaction. Founded in 2001 it now has five stand-alone stores in London and 220 outlets across 35 countries. Temperley London produces ready-to-wear, intricately detailed dresses and knits as well as the exclusive Black Label and bridal collections.
In 2009 the company launched Alice by Temperley, a more accessibly priced line that offers an admirable amount of detail nonetheless. ‘If you want people to come back, don’t rip them off,’ says Alice as we wander up and down hidden staircases and duck through one laughably Alice in Wonderland-proportioned concealed passage from one mews house into another.
The downturn came just when they were most craving security. ‘I had our baby the week that the recession was announced,’ she says, ‘so I rushed back to work, which is something I will always regret – I was breast-feeding in the office two days after giving birth. But Lars implemented changes early on, which made us stronger. If you can survive a recession then your company is tighter.’
Alice taking tea in her studio with the Twinings scarf
From left: Alice with Lars and son Fox; with sister and business cohort Mary (left)
As well as the Alice by Temperley line – which is the more versatile, funky part of her vision and allows the main line to become all the more showy and ethereal – Alice does the odd carefully chosen collaboration, and when she was approached by the tea company Twinings she was rather tickled by the idea of a relationship with them. ‘Over the years we have done Tea at Temperley’s events, so it seemed appropriate. We have just produced a scarf, but there are tea caddies and other things to come. We are all about decoration, pattern and colour, which can be applied to anything.’ There must be an interiors line bubbling away in the back of her mind.
The Twinings limited-edition scarf, which will be sold online, celebrates British prime minister Charles Grey’s journey to the Far East in 1831 when he was presented with some tea by a Chinese Mandarin. He returned to London and asked Twinings to re-create it for him. Henceforth it was known as Earl Grey tea. The scarf is made of floaty, romantic silk voile. ‘You could tie it round your head or wear it over a swimming costume,’ she says. ‘I wanted it to be versatile. There is a compass in the middle to symbolise travel and the print is based on the bergamot flower [the bergamot orange is where Earl Grey tea’s distinctive flavour comes from]. The blue and white is actually inspired by one of my favourite pieces of china in my house in Somerset.’
‘The business is about a tight group of people giving it everything’
Alice readily owns up to an artistic temperament. ‘That’s a good way of putting it,’ she says. ‘I can be very impatient. I wind myself up, so I get anxious and frustrated, but it is something I have learnt to deal with: breathing, walking round the block and staying off the coffee.’ A couple of years ago, after Fox was born, Lars and Alice bought a higgledy-piggledy house in Somerset, a few miles from her parents’ farm.
‘It saved my sanity,’ she says. ‘You work day and night for ten years to build something, and when you have a child, you have to think about kicking back a bit and enjoying what you have built.’
Which is not to say that this designer is taking it easy. Her focus is absolute, her ambition undimmed. And, at this moment, it would be hard to find a more captivating poster girl for her vision than Pippa Middleton.
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