Designer Raechel “Rae” Temily tells me a funny story about how her eponymous womenswear brand came to be. “A year before I launched, I was wearing one of the very first prototypes of a [Temily] jumpsuit and ended up in the elevator with Gabriela Hearst,” she remembers. Her creation caught the designer’s eye and elicited praise – leaving Temily in disbelief.
“I just froze like such an idiot. I’m so star-struck, standing in an elevator with another woman who’s paying attention, and I automatically shrink myself, not feeling worthy.” The a-ha moment that followed motivated Temily to unveil her designs, now available exclusively on Moda Operandi, to the world. “I think, ‘Holy s***, this is the whole point, right? These clothes get attention,’” she says. And they do it without being outrageous or immodest. “Statement, not spectacle,” as the brand’s mission goes.
Make a statement is exactly what Temily did with her official launch events in New York and London this year, attended by dozens of influential women dressed in the brand’s elegant gowns and jumpsuits – similar to the one that caught Hearst’s attention. The Australian designer previously co-founded resortwear label Kalita with Kalita al Swaidi, but this was her first time starting something on her own.
“I always felt everybody else was more talented, more worthy, more accomplished,” Temily says of finally taking the risk to pursue her passion project after all her years in the industry. For the designer, building Temily as both a brand and a community of like-minded women was about taking up space and ownership, and showing up unapologetically in a room, in a conversation, in the world, as herself. “As women, we feel more capable of supporting others’ visions and dreams. But women want to be seen. We actually yearn not to be invisible … These are our superpowers – we feel something before we see it.”
