Elle Decoration - Pattern queen
Alice Temperley's new rugs and cushions for The Rug Company are top of our wishlist this month
Dreamily romantic and delicately detailed, the work of British fashion star AliceTemperley is the perfect choice for The Rug Company's latest designer collaboration. Known for her ethereal, embellished style, Alice has created a capsule collection of one rug and three cushions, all every bit as covetable as her boho-luxe dresses. 'Alice's masterful sense of pattern, colour and proportion translate effortlessly to textiles,' explains Suzanne Sharp, The Rug Company's creative director and co-founder.
For Alice herself, it was an opportunity to use pattern in a different way. 'lt was exciting to create a flat, clean piece of decoration with a rich femininity that will be around for many years to come,' she enthuses. Taking inspiration from her archive of thousands of fabric and tapestry samples, each of the new designs is infused with her signature graphic updates of exotic flora and fauna motifs. Three pieces feature pretty gypsyesque florals, but there's a surprise in the form of a pink leopard-print cushion. 'There's always a little bit of animal print in my fashion collections,' says Alice. 'Here, it provided the perfect foil for the elaborate tapestry of the other cushions.´
Alice—who studied textile and print design before launching her own label,Temperley London, in 2000— honed her skill for creating elegant fabrics in childhood. As a teenager on her parents' farm in Somerset, she was always elbow-deep in buckets of dye, transforming scraps of fabric into pieces that she'd wear and sell. Her new homewares are intended to look equally good in urban flats and old English country homes like her family's. 'I try never to design anything that feels contrived or pretentious— I want each piece to be beautiful in its own right,' she says. And they are —we want them all.
