It is an anecdotal truth that even the most metropolitan of Brits—among them Kate Moss and Charlotte Tilbury and the model Jade Parfitt—reach a point in their lives when the glamour of the West Country becomes irresistible: the darlings, the dachshunds, the image of disco balls strewn across Grade II–listed estates. You get the impression that Alice Temperley has spent the past 20 years designing clothes for the precise moment these revelations take place. “Well, this has been my life!” the designer said, combing the rails at her fall 2024 presentation at Claridge’s hotel. “I’ve always found escapism in dressing up, and things have become pretty gloomy recently, so I think people have realized that life is just too short. Have as much as you can.”
The designer’s fall collection was a lesson in high bohemia, schooled in all the decadence that sprung from the 1920s when the Bright Young Things—an uninhibited class of well-to-do socialites including Cecil Beaton and Nancy Mitford—transformed London and their respective country piles into playgrounds of bacchanalia. Consider them a sort of proto-Saltburn. “I’m also known for behaving badly and I don’t care. I like being frivolous and free and not giving a fuck about having to conform,” Temperley said. The flamboyance of that bright young lifestyle was semaphored in silk robes, metallic-printed velvet dresses, leopard-print suits and long-line tuxedo jackets worn over bias-cut slips. “I’m not a minimal person and I like to be around fun people—otherwise, I’d be bored stiff.”
The designer continued: “I can’t bear the thought of being considered prim and buttoned-up. And so this collection is a coming out and a celebration of optimism.” The monarch butterfly—which is known to be a symbol of hope and rebirth—was chosen as a recurring motif for this exact reason. Its flaxen wings appeared in dégradé embellishments on bell-sleeve dresses and in photomontage prints on lady-of-the-manor gowns. But it also spoke to the brand’s journey into the spotlight: Temperley will be showing a full ready-to-wear collection in Paris this June. These were clothes about breaking from convention and the transformative thrill of pleasure-seeking. The designer named the collection “Metamorphosis.”