Alexander Lewis + Celia Hempton

Wanting to have some fun with his fall 2014 collection, the London designer Alexander Lewis invited the photographer Marie Angeletti to lend an eye in the development of prints and fabrics. This collaboration initiated a series of “interventions,” as hecalls them, with other women artists. “I’ve always looked to art for inspiration,” Lewissays. “It made sense to further that relationship—and with someone who could actually wear the clothes.” For spring, he tapped Celia Hempton, a British painter whom he knew through her boyfriend, the performance artist Eddie Peake. “I had wanted to focus the conversation on color,” Lewis explains. “And Celia’s use of it is incredibly beautiful.” Hempton, whose works depict intimate body parts based on images she finds on the website Chatroulette, proposed three palettes, each alluding to a different time of day: oyster and sherbet hues for morning; field green, ice blue, and an array of pinks for high noon; maroon, orange, deep blue, and dusky silver for early evening. Lewis used the colors in a series of feminine—yet slightly subversive—pieces: A prim gingham dress has a faux bra strap peeking out; a silk blouse is paired with some rather louche metallic disco shorts. “It was important that we both challenge ourselves,” Lewis says. “I didn’t want to just slap her art on a T-shirt and call it a day.”