If there was an award for the oddest pairing in fashion, it would go to Jonathan Anderson and Spanish house Loewe. More than a few eyebrows were raised when the designer, who is better known for his conceptual unisex collections and dressing men in cropped tops, was handed the reins to the heritage brand that is all about "luxe" (in other words: conservative) leather goods.

In person, Anderson looks more like an extra from a Saint Laurent runway show than creative director of one of Spain's most treasured possessions. He's dressed in a typical model uniform of white tee and jeans, complete with dark sunglasses and a cigarette dangling from his fingers. A mop of tousled, highlighted blond hair adds to his boyish charm, although he is quick to assert that looks can be deceiving.

"Fashion ultimately imitates life and in life things don't always look good together from the outset," he says. "I know a certain style is good when I feel uncomfortable with it - those looks turn out to be the best. You have to challenge yourself with things you don't like or don't know."

Taking on a brand reinvention is probably one of the biggest challenges the 30-year-old Irish designer has faced in his short but successful career. A former Prada window dresser, he studied menswear at London College of Fashion and launched his eponymous line in 2008 to critical acclaim. He's been nominated for many awards and even collaborated with the likes of Versus.

In 2013 everything changed when LVMH took a minority stake in his label and offered him the role of creative director at Loewe in the hope that he could transform the dormant house into a modern success story along the lines of Givenchy and Céline. The Loewe gig wasn't originally part of the deal but that changed quickly following a covert visit to the Loewe factory.

"Truth is I just fell in love with the people," he says. "I met the master modeller and leather developer, and I thought this brand can be huge. Loewe was never on my radar, but when I went there I could not understand why it had never been articulated in a way that it wasn't global. I questioned if I wanted to do this, but once I started creating a book of ideas, I couldn't stop."

Although Loewe has a network of stores around the world, it was not a brand that many people took notice of (a fact not helped by its unpronounceable name, which for the record is pronounced Lo-Wev-Eh).

So Anderson decided to adopt a more controversial approach to the rebranding. Much like Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent, he unveiled a fresh new identity, including a sleek new logo designed by graphic duo M/M (Paris) and an eye-catching campaign featuring a selection of vintage Steven Meisel images.

"I did a year of research before I started and realised we had to remove the date and city location from the logo. One of my skills is that I am very marketing directed," he says.

While many creative directors use runway shows as a platform to showcase their vision, Anderson focused first on the fundamentals of the brand and what it does best: leather goods. Soon Loewe's iconic buttery soft leather was transformed into covetable designs such as the best-selling Puzzle Bag, the Colourblock Flamenco Crossbody and a range of minimalist clutches and totes embossed with the discreet new logo.

"There are not many brands in the world that are built up in that way. We have such incredible leather knowledge in hand at Loewe and I had to use that," he says.

Next on his list was adding a more personal element to the brand in the form of culture. Along came various projects, including working with renowned Japanese ceramicist Tomoo Hamada on two exclusive pieces for the Tokyo store, inspired by the brand's DNA. His most recent project, which was unveiled in Hong Kong last week, features prints by British textile artist John Allen, which have appeared on a range of summer essentials, from bags to towels.

"When I was looking at what other brands were offering, none of them really dealt with this culture idea," Anderson says.

That's not to say that ready-to-wear takes a back seat at Loewe. This is an area where Anderson has been most prolific, producing both ready-to-wear and pre-collections for men and women which are shown in Paris.

"Marc Jacobs fundamentally opened up the idea that clothing was needed to articulate leather goods. It came from a moment in the 1990s where he changed our thinking on old houses. I've learned through my lifetime that you need a character to tell a story - a bag cannot be isolated. People need something tangible to hold onto and ready-to-wear creates newness," he says.

There's no doubt that his clothing brings a fresh perspective to the brand. His menswear collections feature everything from slouchy raw-silk tunic and turned-up jeans to knitted palazzo pants, each imbued with his signature androgynous touches. His woman is powerful and dressed boldly in blouson blouses made from patchwork leather and wide-legged trousers.

While many critics have embraced the new Loewe look wholeheartedly, others have not been complimentary, saying that Anderson's work is derivative. Not that Anderson is letting it get to him.

"I had to stop reading what people write. I have to be me. I want the brand to be big, and will do everything to make it happen, but I don't want to change who I fundamentally am. You either like what I say or don't," he says.

"I am bored of the days where we are obsessed with the idea that certain designers owned things. You own nothing. Fashion is not about that. It's about reappropriating things, it's how you edit it."

Like most 21st century designers, Anderson is obsessed with the future and creating a brand that is truly of the moment: he has lofty goals to bring Loewe to the next generation of consumers.

"The idea of relevance is the idea that you can be rejected tomorrow. We live in a culture that moves very fast, so that relevance is short-lived. My biggest goal in the next five years is to get to the point where we will do a show and, the day after, the collection is in store. It means we are designing for the moment that it is going out. That's my dream."Read more here:marieaustralia.com | www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses

Arriving, I find her briefing three press assistants on her upcoming catwalk show while simultaneously rifling through her closet — a dressing-up box filled with animal print and lacy confections — to choose her outfit for our shoot, while Desert Island Discs plays in the background.

Tucked at the end of a row of terraced houses close to London’s Portobello Road, Temperley discovered the six-bedroom property was on the market two years ago through her close friend, the designer Jasmine Guinness. The unique two-storey villa has a studio-style extension on the back of the property designed by the Victorian architect, Richard Norman Shaw.

She moved in 18 months ago with her son, Fox, 7, and her boyfriend, Greg Williams, 43, a portrait photographer, along with his two children from a previous relationship. ‘I’ve always been a Notting Hill girl at heart. I love that it’s so green, I love the market and my offices are around the corner.’

Temperley cites the interior designer Rose Uniacke (the creative genius behind the Beckham’s Holland Park home) as inspiration for fashioning her own interiors: ‘Rose has beautiful taste, sleek, clean but still really soft.’

The house’s all-white interior provides the perfect backdrop for Temperley to hang her beloved antique cut-crystal chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling mirrors sourced from Golborne Road’s Les Couilles du Chien — famous for its historic bric-a-brac — and the Clignancourt flea market in Paris. The most striking of these is an intricately etched diptych of French brasserie mirrors that sits proudly over her living room sofa.

For colourful accents, she looked to her archive of textiles, which ranges from heirlooms from her great-grandmother’s travels around the Orient to remnants of past fashion collections: ‘I have big haberdashery drawers, which are used for storing my collection in a warehouse in Greenford,’ she says. Having such a vast collection gives her the chance to indulge in some serious upcycling; a Mexican rainbow throw livens up a plain cream sofa while a wedding cloak from Turkmenistan makes a quirky wall-hanging.

Despite the global influences, the Union Jack is a recurrent motif: ‘When I worked in New York [in the mid-Noughties] I was called ‘Little Miss English’. I loved using materials such as lace and lots of references to Victoriana — all very British.’ Look closely, and you’ll find red, white and blue accents everywhere — on teacups, Roberts radios and on silk cushions.

‘To me, being British represents being able to be individual, eccentric and not taking yourself too seriously.’

Temperley was born and grew up in Somerset on her family’s cider farm in Martock, before moving to London aged 18 to study fine art at the Royal College of Art. The countryside has an ineluctable pull for Temperley and she carves her time between her office — ‘probably 80 per cent of the time, 10 per cent of the time here, 5 per cent in Somerset at the moment, and 5 per cent everywhere else’.

But if her west London home is all breathy shades of Farrow and Ball, Temperley’s country pile — a sublime 5.6-acre regency property called Cricket Court that was once the media magnate Lord Beaverbrook’s home — is the opposite: ‘In Somerset my sitting room is dark burgundy, we’ve got black bedrooms and an ochre-coloured library.’

To bring a little of the country back to the capital, Temperley peppers her house with beautiful bunches of wild flowers, sourced from florist Juliet Glaves, who grows her own blooms in Shropshire: ‘I always loved The Secret Garden and as a child I spent hours collecting flowers and drying rose petals on every surface. I am a hopeless romantic at heart and I love British country gardens and their flowers.’

Another great passion of Temperley’s is reading and no corner, staircase or table in the house is complete without stacks of books and fashion magazines: ‘Sally Tuffin [the British fashion designer-turned-ceramicist] has got an incredible fashion library at her home in Somerset and my dream one day is to have a room lined in books.’

As for the rest of the London house? It’s very much a work in progress, ‘especially being a working mum. It’s more collecting things and putting them together in a very relaxed way. Like in fashion design, when it comes to interiors things either work together or they don’t. I have a good eye and don’t like to be constricted to just doing clothes — I’d like to go into interiors. That’s the next chapter’.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/red-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses

BRUSH

Brush free the carpet
of mud and fluff.

Let’s brush off the hurtful comment too,
that snide remark, those graceless words.

We’re cleaning yet collecting,
straightening up, taking out the dirt.
Repositioning dust. Always temporary,
never the same, brush, brush,
to and fro, again – again - again.


SCOOP

The ice cream tub has one
to make the portion fair
for that ever-observant,
pernickety child.

When walking the dog,
we scoop the ****.
carrying the plastic bag
to the waiting wanting bin.

Yet the all-important wooden
scoop is made from a block
of a 2 by 3, with chisel, gouge
and a steady hand.

This farmer’s friend, this open spoon,
lives in darkness and under the lid
of the deep grain bin,
to feed white chickens.


POKE

Getting it out,
placing it right –
but much is trial & error.
If it won’t go in,
give it a poke . . .
and it might.

Nowadays it’s a software app
to help you cheat at on-line games
and , God forbid, an important tool
in the tattooist’s bag – the hand poke,
liner and shader with standard
8 – 32 thumb screws and
completely autoclave able.


CUT

Hogwimpering drunk
or ****** out of mind.
Seventies slang for
individual incapacitation.

A cut can hurt,
display the inner
through incision
in the outer.
Reveals, opens up,
allows a division from
one to another.

This cut of meat on the slab?
For you, madam?
I can cut it up
nice and small
for the baby to chew.


RAKE

Lying there in the long summer grass,
it needs standing up, its teeth cleaned.
When autumn comes it redeems itself,
clearing the path, letting the lawn breath.

In the hand of sculptor, ceramicist, modeller
it fashions variously, cuts, pulls away, gouges,
scrapes, a multi-purpose stick with two ends:
of wrapped wire, of ribboned steel.


LOOK

To make sure it’s right:
correct and straight,
balanced, in proportion.
The magnifier helps,
the camera too,
getting the angle,
the position , the light
gauged . . . with a little looking.
You have to look,
see?


HIT

Whatever needs placing firmly,
needs fixing permanently,
can do with a hit (or two).
A nail with a hammer,
a door with a foot,
it could be a winner,
and right on target,
strike out the opposition,
disable the enemy.
A killer noun.
I prefer the verb.

A for Anne Sexton, again and again!
The love and the anger had come back again!
B for Bob Dylan, ballad of a thin man!
Walk into a room with a pencil in your hand!
C for Charles Baudelaire, am not shore on his French!
D for Dylan Thomas, that child's Christmas made sense!
E for Edgar Allan Poe Annabel Lee!
It was a many a many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea!
F for Francisco de Quevedo, the Spanish I couldn't understand!
G for George Eliot, her proper names Mary Anne!
H for homer the Iliad book 13!
Wolfs in the Forrest, and the battle could be seen!
I for Isabella Velancy Crawford, A Harvest song!
Her poetry was so lovely, and nothing spelt wrong!
J for Jim Morrison, My bestest poet of all!
Is music is "king" his rock stood so tall!
K for Kahlil Gibran, I awaken I stare at the sun!
An artist, a poet, a writer, but sadly all his works been done!
L for Lewis Carrol, the hunting of the snark!
M for Matsuo Basho, the true master of his heart!
N for Nizar Qabbani, a poet that was so sweet!
A diplomat a publisher, I hope you R.I.P.
O for Oscar Wilde, in the good room - A Harmony!
Ivory hands, on the Ivory keys!
Strayed in a fitful fantasy!
P for Pablo Picasso, the morning of the world!
A painter, a sculptor, a print maker, a ceramicist not known to us all!
Q for Quincy Troupe, skulls along the river!
What a greater poet, and what a greater performer!
R for Robert Frost, nothing gold can stay!
1864 - 1963!
S for Sylvia Plath, she wrote love is a parallax!
She also got found with her head in the oven, the poor soul died of inhaling gas R.I.P
T for Ted Hughes, a poet and children's writer!
U for all you poets!
Your futures looking brighter!
V for Victor Hugo, the grave and the Rose!
He wrote about the Dews of dawn!
And always mentioned his Rose!
W for William Shakespeare, a poet that he was!
He'll be up there somewhere special!
Playing and writing for the Gods!
X for --xtra space, I couldn't leave it blank!
Y for Yoda Buson!
And Z will have to stay blank-----------