Former Kalita Cofounder Launches Resortwear Brand, Temily
The third season of “The White Lotus” may have wrapped, but the hit HBO series is still casting a warm glow over resortwear, priming the market for new brands to soak up the residuals.
For Raechel Temily of Temily, “it’s a serendipitous situation,” she said while previewing her debut collection “The Body Electric” one week before the final episode aired. It may be a stroke of luck that her breezy chic looks would feel right at home on the cast at The Four Seasons hotel in Ko Samui, which fans have been eager to replicate. After all, “timing is everything,” she added.
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But Temily’s been waiting to strike out on her own for some time. She first had the idea to design Lycra slipdresses with adjustable drawcord straps more than a decade ago while she was busy getting another resortwear brand Kalita off the ground. Cofounded with Kalita al Swaida, it ultimately wasn’t what she wanted to do. “I was making dresses then very geared to influencers,” Temily said of its contemporary positioning. “What I really wanted to do was build a luxury womenswear brand, but I wasn’t quite ready to put my name on the door.”
With her surname now firmly attached, Temily is going after a more sophisticated customer who appreciates higher quality details. Revealing the silk lining on those Lycra slips, she rattled them off: “Everything’s internally bound. It’s French seamed. We’ve done custom fabrics. The hardware is coming out of Italy. Nothing is overlooked.”
While Temily described herself as minimalist, she said she doesn’t subscribe her brand to quiet luxury. She calls it: “statement, not spectacle.” Among her inspirations are the sportier side of ‘90s and early 2000s Prada mixed with the sex appeal of Gucci by Tom Ford, captured in an Herb Ritts photograph.
One might imagine her sweeping parachute maxis in sheer organza caught in a desert storm for a still in Ritts’ El Mirage series. Poppy Delevigne debuted it at the BAFTAs recently, exposing her eight-month pregnancy bump.
What makes them unique is the V-shaped panelling that, aside from also exposing side boob (“The thinking woman’s cleavage,” according to Temily), have hidden spiritual meaning based on pyramidic ley lines to ground the wearer. “Certain clothes connect to us energetically, and when you feel grounded to the Earth, you are truly in your power,” Temily explained. Living behind a temple in Bali during her Kalita years informed her lifestyle approach. “I’m pretty woo-woo,” the designer later joked.
Paneling is Temily’s signature and it lent interesting architectural volume to drop shoulder caftans as well as pilot suits and cropped sweatshirts, which have matching dolphin-hem boxing shorts in cotton and metallised silk. They come in delightful spice rack and mineral colors with “woo-woo” names like goldenrod, obsidian storm and moonlight.
The collection ranges in price from $485 for a simple charmeuse camisole and goes up to $2,800 for the parachute dress. Temily has tapped Moda Operandi as her exclusive wholesale partner, making the line available for pre-order Monday.
The designer said she’s taking a more targeted approach to retail compared with Kalita, which had countless stockists and sold out just ten days after launching. “It was like a runaway train,” she said, adding she felt overwhelmed “making products to feed the beast of wholesale.” Temily said she chose only Moda to partner with because “I don’t need to be everywhere. I want to be able to create the clothes that I’ve had in my head for so many years without worrying about hitting product targets.”
To fete the launch, Temily and Moda Operandi will hold an immersive cocktail event in New York City at the end of April.
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