September 26, 2022 |
Matty Bovan in Milan makes total sense, doesn’t it? His artisanal hand touch, his joyful palette, his captivating spirit – it works so well in the city famed for innovation and the art of sprezzatura.
The York-based designer brought his uninhibited expressionism to the fashion capital for fashion week this season with the support of Dolce & Gabbana (the brand backed Bovan’s show) and the schedule was the better for it.
The trio met over Zoom earlier this year after the designer pair were impressed with what they saw on Bovan’s @babbym Instagram account. With access to their archive and design team, the brit reissued signature pieces before giving them the MB treatment for this show, called Shapeshifter (which he described as “the exploration of visceral texture and colour, subverting and distorting the body through harnessed chaos, resulting in triumphant identities”).
Presenting his version of camouflage and checkerboard, exquisitely constructed corsets came hand-painted all over, while jeans came ripped, embroidered and embellished on a cast that included Ashley Graham, Richie Shazam, Lea T and Hari Nef. Elsewhere, the mirrored pyramid hats were realised by Stephen Jones, the recycled sequins were from The Sustainable Sequin Company, and the vintage telephone wires tangling and dangling off bags were sourced especially to cement this show – the majority of which was made by hand in Yorkshire – as a lesson in slow fashion for a fast-paced world.
The designer had total autonomy over everything in the collection, something he insisted on, he said: “It’s rare to be given carte blanche by anyone who will support and it’s very important to me – the hair the casting the nails the casting – I need to know [everything]. I can’t have that taken out of my control.”
The experience has, he revealed, given him a taster of what a creative director position at a fashion house other than his own might look like. “It’s opened my eyes to other ways,” he said intriguingly. Watch this space.
Photography by Monica Feudi.
