London fashion designer Alice Temperley looks entirely too glamorous for a chilly, damp Chicago afternoon. Startlingly pretty, she sits down to talk at Neiman Marcus Michigan Avenue in a cream silk/cashmere knit dress under a black coat trimmed in quilted silk, both from her fall collection. Her long brown hair piled loosely on her head, a few tendrils trailing across a perfect English rose complexion, Temperley could easily pass for a fairy princess. Or not. Just like her covetable, hippie-cool dresses (Vogue dubbed them “Haute Bohemian”), Temperley is gloriously down-to-earth. She readily confesses her “bad habits”–red wine and roll-your-own cigarettes–and wistfully recalls her upbringing on a cider farm in southwest England. “I miss its tranquility,” she says of life at her family’s Somerset orchard. Her life these days is far from tranquil. She travels constantly between London (where she lives in Notting Hill with her husband, Temperley CEO Lars von Bennigsen), New York and LA, checking in on her little jewel-box shops and catering to a growing A-list celebrity clientele that includes Sienna Miller, Scarlett Johansson and Gwyneth Paltrow. And she will be the next limited-edition designer for select Target stores in September. Templeton was making her first-ever visit to Chicago in connection with her Neiman’s fashion show, which was attended by an astounding 350 guests, who were treated to something dubbed “Temperletinis,” a lethal concoction of Grey Goose, white wine, sugar and rosemary leaves.
1. Cocoon: A furniture store on West Bourne Road in London. The man who owns it is extremely handsome. Whenever he delivers something to the studio the girls get overly excited.
2. “Corelli’s Mandolin”: A book that’s romantic and sad. It takes you to another time.
3. Lapsang Souchong tea with Earl Grey tea: A mixture of half and half.
4. Mario Badescu skin care line: It’s very pure, clean with no fuss.
5. The Rift Valley, Kenya: A friend has a secret place where there is nothing but buffalo and animals and a 100-foot crashing waterfall. The closest human is 11 hours away, and it is simply magic.
6. Alexis Bittar jewelry: I like big jewelry. I like to wear as many of his pieces as possible at one time.
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7. Marlene Dietrich: When I was a child, I sat and watched old black and white movies for hours.
8. Scissor Sisters: They are pure hedonism, aren’t they?
9. Men’s Levi’s: Boy-cut trousers always look better on girls.
10. Apple and blackberry crumble with cream. I make it this time of year. I pick the apples and blackberries from around home.