Shirtless and tattooed, the pictures of Matthew M. Williams that Givenchy released on his first day on the new job this June set social media on fire. “Yeah, I don’t really look at the internet that much,” he said at a preview of his first collection for the couture house. His new employers reportedly didn’t mind the strong reactions. Williams is a 34-year-old American urban-wear designer joining a luxury house in a new age of creative director stardom. Givenchy relies on his personal image to make this union a bankable one. And his debut proposal reflected that in so many ways.

Williams, who was dressed in a sharp black suit and a bleached techno haircut, had stocked an antechamber with Givenchy-labeled black lemonade from Wild and the Moon, the go-to place for any health (and brand) conscious millennial in Paris. Placed front and center was his new lock jewelry inspired by those hung on the bridges of Paris by tourist lovebirds, who throw the key in the Seine. (Williams confessed to having done that once, too.) “It’s no secret that I’m really into hardware, and that’s what I lay the foundation with when I start a new project. It comes into shoes, bags, clothing,” he said. Williams is also obsessed with texture—from the reptilian to the volcanic and the densely embellished—as fervently illustrated at his own label Alyx.

His Givenchy debut read entirely like a morph between those codes and the black-clad elegance of the house he now inhabits. Suspended between the formal and the super casual, the devil was in the fabric treatments. Dressy garments were practically bathed in conditioner and money and champagne, while industrial garments looked as if they’d been washed in paint and acid and run over by trucks on the freeway, again and again and again. If it sounds like the costume department from the Hostel films, it’s not far off. There’s a twisted expensiveness about Williams’s clothes that feels clinical and dirty all at once.

It’s a dense and rich aesthetic loved by the Kardashian-Jenner clan, who’ll surely be wearing this collection on their Instagram accounts in a matter of days. (See: the red trouser and backless body styled tone-on-tone, the sculpted torso snoods, or any of the sci-fi armor-sleeved tailoring.) Williams, of course, earned his stripes working on creative things with Kanye West, and has been grouped with designers like Louis Vuitton’s Virgil Abloh and Christian Dior’s Kim Jones. (He even made buckles for the latter’s first collection there). When he got the Givenchy gig, some wondered how Williams’s output would differ from their territory of savoir-faire fused with streetwear.

His debut did tie common threads to Abloh and Jones’s twists and turns of established dress codes: a cummerbund interpreted as a tonal sci-fi mid-layer, a very normal jean jacket made very special with reflective embroideries, or a tank top skewed into a draped blouse for men. Those things are bankable. At Givenchy’s headquarters, the designer’s predecessor Clare Waight Keller’s midnight glamour had been washed away by crystallizing lights, the salons illuminated like a shop floor. In every way, that’s where the collection was headed. Williams hadn’t worked with a particular inspiration. “I’m not a person who designs in themes. It’s very much product-focused. A lot of it is what I would wear personally,” he explained, adding he did take a trip to the archives that birthed some horn heels informed by Lee McQueen’s era, and nods to Hubert de Givenchy evident in some rigorous tailoring.

The focus on product was seemingly an unemotional process that paid off in the precision of design clearly made to be instantly coveted: mushroomed slides, politely stompy black leather boots, magnified takes on existing bags (some adorned with giant locks), and all the embossed croc leather the phone cover generation could want. Perhaps surprisingly, given the circumstances, there weren’t many logos around. Williams isn’t mad about them. “It’s funny that I get lumped into people expecting that I do that, which I don’t really understand because at Alyx we don’t do that either,” he noted. Instead, he wants his hardware to replace the role of logos.

The notion that a fashion tribe would display its allegiance to a luxury house through crafty embellishment rather than logos is nice, and appropriate for a couture house. Exercised as all-over ring and crystal embellishment on a sporty mesh floor-length dress, it made for a rather bold statement. In fact, Williams’s vision for the Givenchy woman—“very elegant and powerful and chic”—was remarkably graphic and decorative. A transparent white coat covered in fuzzy tinsel, worn over a white laser-cut top that looked like a bustier made from ribbon, with cream trousers, was simply gagging for a scene in an early 2000s music video. At this rate, the ritzy nightclubs of the world better get back in action soon.

“It’s no secret that I’m really into hardware, and that’s what I lay the foundation with when I start a new project. It comes into shoes, bags, clothing.”

The campaign features accessories from the Fall 2020 collection with photography by Chris Maggio. The compositions seem almost confrontationally simple: a model holds a bag or a shoe and sits in front of a white backdrop at a gray table, while a block of text floating above their head reads "Balenciaga" and the piece's name. The stars inhabit a curious emotional realm; they seem almost existentially irritated to have to pose for the shot, gazing accusatorially into the frame. The outcome almost feels like an anti-campaign, an indictment of the superficiality of the marketing fashion process. 

Taken with the video forming the other piece of the Autumn 2020 campaign, this commentary seems to be especially complex. There is a striking contrast between those images and the film. While the film tries to make a meaningful emotional connection with its viewers without using words, the simplistic imagery and text here feel cold and detached. Is Balenciaga poking fun at its huge internet stans army, ready to swallow any item bearing its name? And may they point out to the hypocrisy behind their industry peers' recent pattern of performative allyship? 

Whatever the purpose behind that strange contrast, its effect is what matters. All aspects of the campaign are successful on their own, and together they indicate a fascinating dialog about the brand's position – Balenciaga or something else – in how we view and interpret contemporary culture and its issues. 

Several designers who started at Cristóbal Balenciaga's would go on with opening their own later-famous couture houses, notably Andre Courreges, Emanuel Ungaro, Oscar de la Renta but his most prominent and well-known protege was Hubert de Givenchy, who was the lone designer side by side with Balenciaga against the Parisian Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture and also the press over the scheduling of his shows.

Balenciaga releases a new photography campaign that rejects pretentiousness to embrace simplicity.

Chicago-born designer Matthew M. Williams was tapped by LVMH-owned Givenchy to succeed Clare Waight Keller as new creative director of the house. 

The 34-year-old designer who founded the 1017 Alyx 9SM label in 2015 collaborated previously with Nike, Moncler, Mackintosh and Dior. Since 2018, during Paris women's fashion weeks, he has presented his co-ed runways shows and has been rumored to be shortlisted for the Givenchy lead to which he wants to enhance the house based on modernity and inclusiveness. His first Givenchy outing is set to take place in October. 

"In these unprecedented times for the world, together with my community and colleagues, I want to send out a message of hope and I intend to contribute to positive change."

– Matthew Williams, creative director at Givenchy 

The new role of Williams marks the second time when a street fashion designer has taken the helm of a major luxury company, following the hiring of Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton in 2018. Williams and Abloh are even more connected as before launching Alyx, in collaboration with Virgil Abloh, Heron Preston, Justin Saunders and YWP, Williams co-founded men's streetwear brand Been Trill in 2012. The name 1017 Alyx 9SM comes from the eldest daughter of the designer, whereas the numbers refer to the date of birth of the designer and the abbreviation of the label's first studio on Saint Mark's Place in New York City; Since then, the designer has relocated the house to Ferrara, Italy, between Bologna and Venice, and will be relocating to Paris. 

"I am extremely pleased to see Matthew M. Williams joining the LVMH Group. Since participating in the LVMH Prize, we have had the pleasure to watch him evolve into the great talent he is today. I believe that his unique vision of modernity will provide Givenchy with a great opportunity to write its new chapter with strength and success."

– Sidney Toledano, chairman and managing director of LVMH Fashion Group

It feels like there will be more news to come this year, also in regards to the designer Alexander Wang.

The American founder of 1017 Alyx 9Sm becomes the seventh creative leader of Givenchy French House.

GIVENCHY NAMES MATTHEW WILLIAMS AS CREATIVE DIRECTOR

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