Alice Temperley’s latest CEO Luca Donnini started work only two weeks ago. Yet by some mysterious alchemy, the prints in this collection reflected the impact on her business Temperley anticipates him having.
“He has just joined us and he is amazing,” she said. “He’s had 20 years experience at Max Mara and is somebody who really understands the logistical side of the back end of the business; suppliers, manufacturing…we’re going to be using a lot of amazing Italian manufacturers.”
Temperley was fresh off the plane back from Bari, Italy, to shoot this lookbook at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and tangibly buzzing at the prospect of applying the formula Donnini has so quickly conjured: more daywear (with more sub-categories) priced down and more targeted luxurious eveningwear in elevated fabrications with lowered margins to keep prices stable. That abracadabra is mid-form and has yet to lead to its reveal—we’ll have to wait until September for its first full outing—but here, printed day-dresses in astrologically flavored magician prints gestured in its direction. The collection ran from softly hued drab military workwear–inspired day pieces in drill to evening stunners in Fabergé-esque gilded grids of hand-beading. Metallic lamé dresses with accentuations of ruffle and day-dresses in rainbow-hued feather-print hammered silk were ideal for wearers hoping to cast their own spell. The collection was only mid-shoot, but Temperley promised plenty of enchanting knits. This was a designer suddenly energized. She said: “I feel like there’s a sort of bottleneck that has suddenly opened. Now everybody really knows what they’re doing, what their objectives are for the collection, and where it’s going.”
