born again; Sarah Mower meets the maverick designer who's breathing new life into Liberty of London.(Tamara Salman)(Interview)

Byline: Sarah Mower

What should a girl do when faced with making something of the vast trove of tradition embedded in the 130-year-old Arts & Crafts history of a British store as great as Liberty? Tamara Salman knew exactly. She sat down and designed a string bikini.

When she arrived as creative director of the Liberty of London label in 2005, Salman wasn't about to play it safe-that much was evident from her jet-black rockabilly bangs. "I'm a bit on the dark side, Goth," she admits. "But I adore color, too. So when I first walked in, I wanted to get away from flowery Tana Lawn blouses and Auntie's sofas and curtains." For the half-English, half-Iraqi textile designer, it was the free-spirited East-West scent of the place she identified with. "It's the opulence and exoticism of it, the fact that Arthur Liberty, the founder, was the first to bring back textiles and objects from the East, and that his staff dressed in kimonos at a time when most everyone else was in corsets."

What was needed, Salman thought, wasn't hushed overreverence but something surreptitiously bold and lushly decadent that could sneak into the luxury market and surprise everyone. (Witness note: And this is exactly the effect if you place a Salman/Liberty black patent, chrome-edged box bag on a table in a restaurant in Paris during Fashion Week. Buyers and editors-the people who are most "over" It bags-will crowd in and ask, "Where's that from?")

Quite possibly, no one is more surprised than Salman that she's attracting that kind of attention. "I have no specialist background in bag design," she exclaims. "I'm coming at it with no preconceptions. But perhaps not being part of that industry gives me a different angle." The box bag stemmed from the Cappellini medicine cabinet in her bathroom. "I was looking at it one morning and got inspired. It's ultraclean, but then I juxtaposed it with the embossed Ianthe print. The secret is to put modern with decorative so it's not too obvious."

Salman's taking the ...