ME & MY BATHROOM
Fashion designer Alice Temperley invites us into the space she calls her refuge
1. The plinth was already here when we moved in nine years ago, probably to stop the bath crashing through the floor. I love the fact that it’s in the centre of the room, as the light comes through on different sides depending on the time of day. I had the plinth painted with a Union Jack to resemble the cover of my first book, True British.
2. I have disco balls hanging around the house and I love the dappled reflections they give, so I created a ‘disco bath’, covering it with pieces of broken mirror. I did it one evening over a bottle of wine with my friend, model Jade Parfitt. I have been asked so many times where it’s from that I should probably launch a line in mirrored baths…
3. The aubergine colour on the wall is a favourite shade that I have also used in my sitting room, as well as in my Bruton Street store and on the exterior of my former house in London. It’s a warm, earthy neutral that beautifully offsets everything – I much prefer it to, say, navy or black.
4. I’m not a fan of carpet in a country house and prefer to stick to either wooden floors or natural matting, which I have used here in my bathroom. To add to that warm, lived-in feel, I have layered it with vintage rugs.
5. My house is very much a pick-and-mix; I collect things as I go along and the mirrors, dressing table, rugs and chandelier are all pieces that I have found at haunts such as Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton
Park in Surrey or my local auction house, Lawrences in Somerset. The chandelier is on a dimmer switch and it casts a lovely soft light across the ceiling.
6. My bathroom is my refuge where I go at the end of the day to read. I always have fresh flowers in there and Epsom salts for the bath, as well as lots of scented candles. My favourite is the woody, heady fragrance of the Brown candle by Hotel Costes.