February 19, 2023 |
Skipping the runway for a season and instead proposing a high-octane tableau vivant, Matty Bovan’s AW23 presentation was an elaborately layered evolution of his opus, made entirely by Bovan’s own hand. Dubbed Deep Space Nymphs, it proposed a stark polarity to his rather chaotic previous collections; where deconstructed, punchy, street-ready styles were once slashed and distorted, they became artisanally piled, draped, bundled and balled concoctions paired with silk-satin stuffed animal bags. A regal maximalism emerged while meaty silhouettes remained of the same swollen proportions.
The eclectic grandeur of the collection invited an oxymoronic juxtaposition of opulence in, infused with the “dirty, worn and overdyed” aspects he tends to apply to his designs. Bovan writes in the show notes that his ”hand scrawled, painted patterns illustrate humanity in its sumptuous antithesis to an AI-controlled digital future”. So, evoking a romantic sci-fi baroque aesthetic, intricate embellishments and beaded embroidery underscored the billowing ball gowns and grungy knits on view, which were created using almost entirely deadstock woven fabrics.
The show, which unfurled upstairs in a crimson-dipped brasserie room at Langan’s, London, with Space Nymphs loafing in the velvet upholstered space, was visceral. Whatever folkloric fabrications Bovan hand-sewed, we reaped.
Photography by Rebecca Maynes.
