October 22, 2024 |
While there would be no shame in going by the name of Alex Partridge, Alex Finch or Alex Crow, fate played a blinder in naming Alex Eagle. Symbols of power since Babylonian times, eagles are revered for their independence and strength – apt descriptors for a designer, retailer, interiors guru, art collector and curator whose formidable wingspan presides magisterially over London’s creative scene.
Which is all a metaphor-heavy way of saying that Alex Eagle is important. How to win friends and influence people? She could have written the book.
In her pursuit of collecting things – objects, experiences, people – Eagle, who was born in Chiswick, West London, started young. “My mum says she remembers being in the playground when I was about three years old and I was rounding up all these kids of different ages,” she laughs. “I wanted to get them all together, but she said that once I had them there, I had no idea what to do with them.” At 41, she’s still getting people together – only now, she knows exactly what to do with them. “She’s one of the best-connected people in London,” says one friend admiringly. “If you’re looking for a Tibetan monk with a sideline in reiki who can also double as a nanny, Alex is your girl. I once mentioned that I had a backache. She’d emailed me her osteopath’s details before I’d finished my sentence.”
While her contacts span the great, the powerful and the good, Eagle is almost wilfully unassuming in person, dressed in vintage jeans, sold-out Bode x Nike trainers and an oversized shirt unbuttoned just low enough to reveal a peep of black lace cami. If she’s wearing make-up, it’s the best no-make-up-make-up face I’ve ever seen. The whole thing is a flex, but like a dog whistle, it’s only a flex to those worth flexing to. Like her jewellery (rare finds and fiendishly expensive), Eagle is the London embodiment of quiet luxury, right down to her Margaux bag.
from left: Miu Miu, Prada
She says she’s always been driven. “I remember saying I wanted to be the editor of Vogue when I was really little and my aunts and uncles laughing at me. I was furious! Why is that funny? It’s easy to have drive when you are pretty clear about what you want to do. You can visualise it. But it was still a struggle. I worked for free for years. I was at the bottom of the pile for ages.”
After stints on fashion magazines and in PR, in 2014 she opened her first lifestyle boutique, Alex Eagle Studio, on Chelsea’s Walton Street, outgrowing it quickly and moving to a larger space on Lexington Street in Soho. Since then, she’s launched a womenswear collection, a bespoke suiting service, a design studio (Eagle & Hodges, in partnership with her oldest schoolfriend Sophie Hodges), numerous collaborations (Pantherella, Swaine London, Maison Labiche) and The Store X, a concept shop with outposts in Soho House Berlin, Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire and 180 Studios.
Her carefully curated mix of glassware, art, fashion, jewellery, beauty and books is well suited to the Soho House franchise, a synergy made all the more harmonious by the fact that Eagle’s husband, is a commercial property developer which gives her an insider’s eye on his projects. Most recently, Eagle & Hodges oversaw the refurbishment and design of the Windsor gothic mansion-turned-hotel Oakley Court. She’s currently working on the launch of the hotel arm of 180 Strand, whose brutalist facade also hosts her own HQ. While Soho House occupies the upper floors of the building, Alex Eagle Sporting Club (a wellness retreat and clothing brand) has a residency at the health club below, where treatments have been curated with her usual discerning taste. Elite practitioners deliver reiki, sound escapes, ozone saunas and breathwork – or you could always fence, one of Eagle’s favourite hobbies.
from left: Chanel, Gucci
“I’m very deep into wellness,” she says with a smile. “I feel like it’s a really good time to be 40. I’ve done a lot of work on myself and really enjoyed it. I love Pilates, but I [have to] make myself do yoga, although I enjoy it when I do. I try to meditate. I love a bit of solitude. I’ve loved my own company since I was a child and very much need it. I need 10 days by myself a couple of times a year. My husband’s really supportive of it and my children have learnt to be.” One of her favourite retreats is Buchinger Wilhelmi by Lake Constance, Überlingen (a southern German city not far from the Swiss border). “I love the German countryside – not the sexiest choice, but the landscapes are beautiful. I don’t need boiling hot. And I don’t need extreme sports. It’s all about staying calm.”
The same principle underlies all her creative endeavours. “My whole approach is calm shopping, calm investing and calm designing. I don’t want people to feel panicked into buying anything. If you miss it, it’s not gone for ever. Most of the stuff I do isn’t on a timeframe. It’s hopefully all long term. I don’t do seasons. I don’t do collections. I don’t do sales. We just do items. We work hard on simple things that can be worn now and in five years’ time – things you actually need. I’m constantly thinking about what you’re really going to wear to death and what your husband, boyfriend or girlfriend might borrow or steal.”
She’s a firm believer in the power of bricks and mortar. “Luxury is experience. It’s going into a shop and there being a certain smell or type of music. You buy into the culture of a shop, that whole feeling. Money is so precious that you want to have an experience tied to the item you’re buying. We’ve had so much weightlessness without excess over the last five years that there’s a return to things being more precious.”
top and trousers by Alex Eagle
I ask what advice she’d give to young designers who are struggling in the current economic climate. “Don’t try to be everything. Work out whether you’re a designer or a creative director. Both are great, but they’re two different things. If you’re a designer, find your own handwriting. And if you’re a creative director, start collaborating. Work out what your vision is and how to inspire other people. Try to own one thing and then grow from that.” One of her favourite new labels is Standing Ground. “It doesn’t look derivative of anything. You can’t learn that. I hope Michael Stewart [the founder] will get some big job at a big house if that’s what he wants. But he is the big house.”
Diverse as her creative pursuits are, she says they all have a common thread. “Ultimately, all of the businesses are fabric businesses – all made in Britain, in small quantities, mainly bespoke, with no greenwashing, because I don’t believe in it. It’s all low impact, made in a small way, with no wiggle room for waste.”
As someone who lived, worked and breathed quiet luxury long before it became a trend, I’m curious as to what her thoughts are about the divisive term. “It’s always been there, and it always will be. It’s not a trend – it’s a huge chunk of the market. Other people can dip in and out if they want to, but if you’re the kind of person who believes in that, you believe in it for ever.”
While quality and longevity are her watchwords, she says she does have the odd splurge. “I bought a Birkin when I finished Oakley Court, as a present to myself. And then for my 40th, I bought myself a tricolour Kelly [by Hermès] from 1983, the year I was born. I like the idea that with a Birkin, I might go off it, but my daughter will still want it one day. There’s the investment side of it, and also that they get better with age. Things that get better with age are comforting. Maybe it’s [mirroring] my own feelings about getting older.”
from left: jacket and top by Alex Eagle, Prada
Her daughter is a lucky girl, as are all her children (she has three – Jack, 7, Coco, 5, and Luke, who is 1), not least because they get to call a 4,300 sq ft warehouse in Soho, as well as a modest cottage in Oxfordshire, home. When I tell her she looks enviably well rested for someone in the trenches of parenting, she looks surprised. “Thank you! I really haven’t slept in eight years.”
If the children don’t keep her awake, you imagine her own brain will, fizzing as it is with an endless number of ideas, plots and schemes. “Come and fence with me!” she insists when our time is up, me having mentioned that I haven’t picked up a sabre since I was 15. “Let’s book in next week!” Maybe I will. With Alex Eagle behind me, maybe I’ll soon be fencing in the Olympics.
Louis Vuitton
Prada
jacket, trousers and shirt by Alex Eagle
Taken from Issue 73 of 10 Magazine – RISING, RENEW, RENAISSANCE – out NOW. Order your copy here.
ALEX EAGLE: FLYING HIGH
Photographer JOSHUA TARN
Fashion Editor and Talent ALEX EAGLE
Text LAURA CRAIK
Hair HIROSHI MATSUSHITA using Hair by Sam McKnight
Make-up OKSANA CHEREPANIA using Dr. Barbara Sturm
Fashion assistants GEORGIA EDWARDS, SONYA MAZURYK and DONNA CHOI
