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The knitwear designer Alex Gore Browne opens up her

Cotswolds home – and her wardrobe – to

reveal a collection of eclectic vintage treasures

MY LIFE,

MY STYLE

WBy LUCY HALFHEAD

Photographs by HARRY CROWDER

hen I was growing up, I wasn’t into fashion at all,’ admits the British knitwear designer Alex

Gore Browne, as we walk along the river that separates her garden from the sheep-flecked Wiltshire countryside beyond. ‘I used to love constructing intricate little theatre scenes out of cereal boxes. Now, when I knit on the machine, it’s the process of transferring the needles and casting off that I find very therapeutic.’

Gore Browne launched her eponymous label in 2000 after completing a BA in Textile Design at Central Saint Martins. Along with her peers, who included Jonathan Saunders and Roksanda Ilincic, she trained under the tutor and course director Louise Wilson. ‘Louise was absolutely terri-fying,’ she says, ‘but, boy, did

you want to work hard.’ Her sophisticated handmade pieces soon caught the eye of Alexander McQueen and Matthew Williamson, who sourced fabrics from her, and Joseph Ettedgui, who bought the entire collection for his Brompton Cross shop.

Today, she is a knit consultant for McQueen, working from a sun-dappled studio at Tidmington House, where she lives with her husband Jo, the son of Lord Bamford and heir to the JCB-digger busi-ness. They met in Ibiza through a mutual friend, and married at Chelsea Old Church in 2007 in front of 100 friends and family, followed by afternoon tea at Claridge’s. ‘I made my own dress for the wedding and my bridesmaids’ dresses,’ she says. ‘It took me about a month… never again.’

The couple moved to the Cotswolds six years ago, and are now happily settled there

Above: Alex Gore Browne in her bedroom, wearing a top, £745,

from her own label. Silk skirt, £775, Roksanda. Below: freshly picked

flowers on the mantelpiece. Below left:

the entrance to Tidmington House

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STYLE

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with their two children: Tilly, who is seven, and five-year-old Teddy. They live 20 minutes up the road from Daylesford, the 1,500-acre organic estate founded by Jo’s mother, Lady Bamford. They had driven past this Grade II-listed house countless times before, and admired the elegant façade, which is visible from the road, when eventually it came up for sale. But it was also the previous owner’s bold use of colour that clinched it for them. ‘It was so refreshing to see,’ says Gore Browne, ‘because you get a lot of neutrals and beige everywhere today.Tidmington felt like a real home.’

It’s true; the house is effortlessly wel-coming. The heady scent of Bamford candles follows you from room to room, as

do the family’s trio of canine companions, Button the beagle puppy, Tigger, a whippet, and the black labrador, Moon. Log fires crackle, and glass vases overflow with fox-gloves and peonies from Willow Crossley Flowers. Upstairs in the children’s bed-rooms, fairy lights are strung across the Barneby Gates stencilled star wallpaper, and Bamford body products line the bathroom shelves.

The rich paint colours on the ground floor are the perfect backdrop for a beguiling collection of vintage prints and retro toys, including a glass cabinet of miniature cars that mirror the Alfa Romeo, Porsche and BMW parked on the drive outside. Gore Browne is an aficionado of the websites Selling Antiques and 1stdibs, as well as

Above: jumper, £785, Alex Gore Browne. Silk skirt,

£1,260, Jenny Packham at

Net-A-Porter

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‘It’s the process of transferring

the needles and casting off that I find

very therapeutic’

Right: a piece from Gore Brown’s A/W 16 line. Below: a collection of

yarns. Bottom: jumper, £595, Alex Gore Browne

car-boot sales and Chipping Norton’s Station Mill Antiques Centre. ‘There’s also the Newark Antiques & Collectors Fair… I’ve been there a lot,’ she says. ‘I really enjoy searching for evocative pieces.’

This seems to apply to Gore Browne’s wardrobe too: ‘I love sourcing unique vintage garments – I’ve got an amazing all-in-one with culotte trousers that used to be a beach robe from the 1950s.’ She also has a weakness for Chinti and Parker cashmere jumpers (arranged by colour like a rainbow

in her walk-in-wardrobe) that she wears with her own fluid knitted skirts or thrown on over Frame Denim jeans. ‘I do love dressing up,’ she says. ‘It’s nice to put on a pair of Aquazzura heels when I go back to London, because you just can’t do that here. Basically, you’re stepping out into mud for nine months of the year.’ So at home you’re more likely to find her in American Apparel leggings

and Repetto ballet pumps for doing the school run. ‘Another benefit of working from home,’ she says.

When they bought Tidmington, Gore Browne converted the dining-room into a magical children’s playroom, complete with swings and giant beanbags, that gives Giffords Circus a run for its money. ‘We’re just not formal people at all – we do a lot of

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STYLE

ALEX’S WORLD

Below: lace and cotton dress, £300, Self-Portrait at

Net-A-Porter. Cardigan,

£1,285, Alex Gore Browne

fancy-dress in this house,’ she says. For her 40th-birthday party last year, guests were invited to the ‘Tidmington Wilderness’ – a wonderland conjured up by Amanda

Sheppard and India Lang-ton’s Rose Productions, where multi-coloured balloons cas-caded from upper windows and down the exterior walls of the house. Gore Browne wore Pucci and danced all night in the ribbon-draped marquee, after a Daylesford feast. ‘It was amazing,’ she says, ‘the greatest show on Earth.’

But despite the allure of this rural idyll, following a career break after the birth of

her children, Gore Browne has returned to her knitting machine, and is preparing to unveil a collection for A/W 16. Her trade-mark feminine fl ourishes are visible in her new Pierrot-style cocktail sweaters in feather-light cashmere and merino wool – delicate beading, ruffl es and the perfect gold trim. ‘I’m never confi ned by the boundaries of knitting,’ she says. ‘I’m inspired.’

her knitting machine, and is preparing

£70 Charlotte Tilbury at

Net-A-Porter

Print, £220 Hugo Guinness

Co� ee-table book, £9.95

Anthropologie

Cushions, £295 each Yastik by

Rifat Ozbek

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