Matthew M. Williams evaded
questions of the specific visual references and focused on nerdy things like
cuts and fabric…. mood boards and sketches for the old guard. I’m more on the
body, touching materials… it’s very instinctual
Williams is emblematic of a new wave of designers for whom fashion is often less about producing the flashy statement piece than about perfecting the unassuming wardrobe staple—focusing on themselves as target audience. “What I find exciting is often things I would wear myself,”
Millennial designers have grown up in the digital age of fashion fandom, spent their twenties saving up for $800 cult-brand hoodies, and learned to obsess about trouser hems. They’re also well-versed in the grammar of icons— whether that’s a varsity jacket or a Hermès anything—and, crucially, in the art of subversion. You could apply all those teachings to Williams’s new collection for Givenchy, which proposed a series of wardrobe staples subverted through his soft-versus-aggressive lens.
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“For me, it’s really finding that tension between my real world—how I wear clothes on a daily basis—with this magical dream world of the Maison,” he said. More often than not, that implied a bellicose level of fabric treatment, leatherwork, or embellishment. But next to his rigid materiality, Williams also made a case for the comfort-wear of the post-pandemic shopping landscape. Interestingly, Williams’s take on Givenchy isn’t very sporty at all, something you might expect from a designer his age. “I do wear suits,” he reiterated. “It feels more like me.”
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“I’m doing the logos through construction and materials as much as possible,” he said, presenting a leather jacket with Givenchy embossed across the lower back as an example. “Sometimes when there’s branding, it’ll be more subtle.”
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Those are the pretentious words (of a Vogue reviewer who is apparently uneducated and grandiloquent and his chat with a designer lost in his own bullshit designing clothes for himself and not his client.
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If anything, this is a derivative souk of a collection with a wimpy weak take on McQueen and with no direction. Again lost at sea. Afterall a silver puffer in 2 lengths that we have seen a jillion times but perhaps not in the same collection as a slinky knit tank dress.
As for the logo schtick, that’s something that the Euros are finding as the magnet for their Asian clients as that is what makes the piece identifiable and recognizable which is and has always has been a part of the conspicuous consumption of fashion … as it were in the far east.
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I’m willing to say that Mr. Williams may have even less of a vision for the maison than his predecessor and that is not an easy achievement. Other than logo there is no signature to the brand just clothes and not very good ones at that…so good luck with finding 1000s of Matthews who want what you want and not what the brand demands!
PS I can’t even begin to discuss the unexceptional and absurd footwear!
