“I do see men and women hanging out,” Matthew Williams said as we watched the womenswear follow-up to the men’s show in January. He continued: “The beauty of Alyx is that the history of the brand is being written in real time every day. It’s like a monologue. It’s evolved a lot and now I’m 37 and that’s okay. It’s not that we need to make clothes for the kids in the club, that’s probably something I was more interested in when I first started.”
Still, you can see some of these looks killing it clubs, whether it’s with the Alyx guys or not. These include a dog-neck stud collar distressed hem dress at the beginning and end, a slip dress from a Mark Flood artist-collaboration print, and a scrunch-neck metallic mesh top (with pink distressed denim shorts) and a miniskirt. Likewise, you can place William’s Alyx women in more urbane contemporary settings—gallery openings, creative meetings, bank robberies, etc.—in his jewel-detailed, highly-regarded satin, chunky-cut, rib-knit dresses , studded knee-length leather pants and shearling.
The treated lace on the draped trousers and top is another reference to Flood’s lace paintings, whose delicate dissonance nicely offsets the meticulously dyed, washed, printed and Then burnt to create layers of depth. Silver Rabbit hardware is also a flood resource, based on a painting of a melt-mixed Easter Bunny. Cowboy boots, some in a flood print or more plain, had the leather toe cut open to reveal an uncompromising steel cap underneath. There are two new bags, the unisex Payton and the feminine-centric Raya, both in flood prints and in a variety of vegan and non-vegan options.
Williams, both by parsing the last two Alyx collections and keeping tabs on his wider activities, seems to be entering a new, progressively inspired design phase. “I want the brand to mature, grow and evolve with my taste and life: it’s a personal project,” he said.
