London Fashion Week: Temperley

By ALICE WYLLIE
Published on Wednesday 22 February 2012 12:44

THE Temperley show flaunts its blue-blooded connections with a regal and heavily bejewelled collection

At the Temperley show, the two weighty crystal chandeliers hanging above the runway hinted at the opulence of the collection. Inspiration was drawn from the measured decadence of the renaissance, and there was barely a garment which wasn’t gilded or bejewelled. Dresses (for this was a dress-heavy collection) brought to mind renaissance paintings and tapestries, with brocade, gold detailing and jewelled straps a-plenty. Models wore (reclaimed) fur hats and stacked piles of chunky gems up their wrists like Italian grandmothers going to mass wearing all the jewellery they own. The collection built from simpler printed or embroidered dresses inspired by folk art through pieces in velvet and jacquard towards weighty gowns dripping with excess. The middle ground perhaps proved most successful, with a navy draped silk gown drawing particular admiration from the assembled audience when

the model turned to reveal crossed straps adorned with chunky gems. This was a distinctly regal collection; unsurprising really, since Alice Temperley has a firm fan in the Duchess of Cambridge. The irony is that Kate would never don such unabashed bling, so between jewel-encrusted looks came the occasional palate cleanser in the form of a navy princess coat with bold gold buttons, or a modest royal blue day dress. Indeed, it was possible to pick out the looks the young royal will be wearing come autumn, so grounded were they in her aesthetic. The rest of the collection spoke of Duchesses of old, before mixing high street with designer was considered the most sensitive way to appease the masses, and it was the more fun for it.

• Pictures: Getty/PA/AP

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