Temperley London

Alice Temperley’s Fall presentation was a smart, sophisticated salute to British style, inspired by classic Norman Parkinson photographs, some of which lined one wall at Milk Studios as an aide-mémoire. The other wall was hung with Adam Whitehead’s portraits of modern beauties—Erin O’Connor, Susie Bick, Liberty Ross, Yasmin LeBon—wearing outfits from the new Temperleycollection. If the photos bridged the decades, the clothes did, too. The designer compiled the most iconic British elements and styles to make her own statement: the striped boarding school blazer retailored, for instance, or the Union Jack reconfigured as a knit dress in faded colors, like a distant memory of punk. The Crown Jewels were referenced in the gems that decorated shoulders and lapels. There was an Art Deco edge to this, in fact, made explicit in a one-shouldered gown in glass chiffon or another gown in white crepe that brought to mind Deco’s Egyptomania. On the other hand, Whitehead’s portrait of Jaquetta Wheeler in Temperley’s chartreuse cardigan made me think of afternoon tea with Diana Cooper. A Parkinson moment, if ever there was one.