matthew williams

You grew up in California and founded your brand in New York. How has each influenced your work?

I had a wonderful upbringing in Pismo Beach, California, and spent most of my childhood skateboarding, playing soccer, going to the beach and practising karate. I moved to L.A. when I was 20 years old to work in clothing production for a denim brand, then moved to New York City, spending most of my adult life there prior to moving to Italy. Both California and New York have significantly influenced my work. The people, culture, music scenes, art, architecture and experiences are so unique in both cities.

What has been your greatest achievement since you launched ALYX?

I named the brand after my eldest daughter – this represents my love and dedication to my family and my work. Producing full men’s and women’s ready-to-wear collections and presenting them with runway shows in Paris has been a dream of mine since I was a child. I hope that my work and the clothing – its quality, craftsmanship, and longevity – exist for many years to come.

Who do you have in mind when you design?

For me, the menswear collection represents my ideal wardrobe. I look to make pieces that I would want to wear over and over – items I will keep in my closet forever. In this way, my collections have a lot of personal energy and emotion. The ALYX customer is not one specific type of person. It is for everyone and anyone who appreciates the design, craftsmanship and development.
 

You’ve previously worked with brands such as Dior, Nike and Moncler. How did this shape your outlook?

I believe in collaborating with brands who are experts in their field. This enables both sides to design pieces we would not necessarily be able to create on our own.

Each collaboration came about in a different way. I was initially approached in 2016 to develop a clothing and footwear collection for the Nike Training category.

Nike has been one of my favourite brands since I was a child, so working with them on an ongoing basis has been a dream come true.

I was approached by [Moncler CEO] Remo Ruffini in 2018 to participate in the Moncler Genius project. My team and I develop each collection by identifying the classic styles and designs from Moncler’s archive that we like, and then we rework them with our own distinct language. We analyse and integrate ALYX’s DNA (our zippers, buckles and over-dye treatments) with Moncler’s iconic down material and cold-weather technology. We’ve also created several accessory and footwear designs that Moncler had never developed before.

Kim Jones and I have been friends for a long time; he’s always been supportive of what I do at ALYX. When he was appointed to Dior Homme, he reached out about collaborating on hardware to be used in the collections because he loved my signature rollercoaster buckle for ALYX, so I developed new variations and designs for Dior.

You have integrated blockchain technology into some of your designs. How exactly does this work, and why is this important to you?

We participated in a pilot project with Avery Dennison [a global manufacturer of adhesive and packaging materials] to test out blockchain software developed by a company called EVRYTHNG. We presented the results at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit last year.

A selection of ALYX products featured hang tags with unique QR codes that presented the entire supply-chain journey of each individual garment, which verified the piece’s authenticity. This experiment gave us a greater insight into how traceability and transparency could be implemented in our production and supply chain. We have not yet pursued implementing it on a larger scale but would like to do so in the future.

What materials do you work with, and where do you source them?

Fabric research is a huge part of my process. My team and I spend a lot of time researching and working with new materials. We’ve worked with an array of sustainable materials, including Econyl nylons, ECCO Leather, upcycled cotton and recycled denim, as well as unique materials like Dyneema (which is considered to be the strongest fibre in the world) ripstop, carbon fibre, pony hair, Tyvek and many more. We attend fabric fairs, innovation summits and spend a lot of time researching online.