Alice Temperley is known for her romantic, hand-finished gowns and cider-soaked country parties, but beneath the silk and spirits is an astute businesswoman with a five-year business plan.
Her aim: to turn her privately held fashion house into a leading English luxury lifestyle brand.
“I’m super excited about the next chapter,” Temperley says. “I’m focusing on one brand, one message.”
Temperley started the company in a Notting Hill mews house 14 years ago with then-boyfriend Lars, a German banker. Her gowns and fun-loving personality were a hit with party girls, and she became London’s go-to boho designer. While she used to bristle at the label, now she embraces it.
“Sod it, I am a bohemian!” she says with a laugh. “I grew up in the countryside; I am from a farm; I don’t always use my hairbrush; I collect lots of different things; I put things together in a very sort of English manner.”
While Temperley regularly dresses stars for the red carpet, arguably no one has done more for the brand than the Middleton sisters. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, wore a stunning black lace Temperley gown to a movie premiere, and then recycled it on two more occasions. Pippa, who has appeared on the Temperley front row, stunned in a bespoke emerald satin slither at her sister’s wedding reception.
“I was amazed by the power of one photograph,” Temperley says. “It’s very, very flattering if somebody chooses to wear us — whether it’s somebody in an airport or a somebody fabulous in a magazine.”