He’s had the help of his mum, his dad and a fair few celebrities and supermodels along the way, but there’s no denying Matthew Williamson knows how to design a hot dress

 

 

Report by Sheryl Garratt

Photography by Chris Brooks 

 

On the top floor of the townhouse near Shepherd Market in Mayfair, where Matthew Williamson’s fashion empire is based, there are two rooms: a design studio and the office where Matthew works with his business partner, Joseph Velosa. Erin O’Connor once came for a fitting and walked into the wrong room, catching the designer sitting at the computer. “Oh my God, you’ve got a desk!” she exclaimed. “I had no idea. I just thought you threw chiffon in the air all day!”

 

 

Williamson laughs as he tells me the story, adding that his job is nowhere near as glamorous as people expect. Which is just as he likes it. It is two weeks before he’s due to show in London when we meet, and August is the cruellest month for most designers – the factories are closed, and most of the new collection won’t be arriving for another week. “I just can’t wait to get moving,” he says. “It’s doing my head in.”

 

He’s gone for bold, almost psychedelic prints in this collection, partly inspired by the Scottish artist Jim Lambie’s installations, and a more polished look overall. “It’s not so much about kaftans in Ibiza. But quite what it is about, I don’t know! I’m literally getting clothes in now and pulling it together, but the idea is a quite strong, sharp silhouette, and the prints are fabulous – huge, overblown orchids.”

 

Since he was 11, Williamson knew that he wanted to be a fashion designer, but then it was all about making clothes, having a shop, putting on a show. “That was my fantasy as a little boy,” he smiles. “Fortunately, as it evolved, I realised that I actually love the other aspects behind the glamour and the glitz. My favourite part is always the period after the show, when I’m creating. It’s that cyclical nature of fashion that I love, that moment of going, ‘Right, it’s done. Let’s look at the good and the bad of that show, decide what we want to pull forward and start afresh.’ Those weeks of fabric sourcing and sitting with my staff and teasing out the ideas for the next collection are definitely the best part.”

 

I’d always thought of Matthew Williamson as a bit of a social butterfly, flitting around the world looking for new inspiration and making new connections. Jade Jagger, Kate Moss and Helena Christensen appeared in his first show in 1997, and since then he’s forged lasting relationships with the women who wear his clothes – from Kylie and Cheryl Cole to his close friend Sienna Miller. In fact, he’s surprisingly shy and low-key in person. He doesn’t like texting, he says, and he’s not even big on phone calls. He only has five really close friends, and he prefers seeing them face-to-face. 

 

He’s well aware of the value of celebrity, however. The tulip dress that Cheryl Cole wore on The X Factor last year became a best-seller, and when stylist Rachel Zoe recently wore one of his dresses on her US reality show, his New York store was unable to keep up with the demand. To up his profile in the US after opening his shop there last February, he even did TV himself. He featured in the new season of Project Runway and is about to make a cameo appearance in Mischa Barton’s new, fashion-centred TV drama, The Beautiful Life. 

 

On the whole, these connections have developed organically. “I’ve been fortunate to have women like Jade and Sienna who have really helped express who I am as a designer,” he says, but points out that for any stylish woman the clothes come first. “She’s not going to wear it if she doesn’t feel great in it.”

 

If he sounds defensive here, he has reason. His label is a very British success story, and we often fail to celebrate it in a very British way. I often hear that Matthew has been lucky to have big breaks so early in his career and to keep his company afloat for 12 years, when so many others have floundered. But you make your own luck: people willing to work hard, and to put their work out there, tend to be luckier than those who sit passively sniping at the success of others.

 

It also helps that Matthew was never interested in difficult clothes, in art for art’s sake. “I am quite a commercial designer, and at the end of the day I make the clothes that I make because I want them to get bought. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I still get a thrill out of going in one of my stores and seeing someone buy something.”

 

A handsome but slight, almost fragile figure wearing skinny jeans and a black jacket, which he later explains was for a formal Vogue photo shoot earlier in the day, he has always been drawn to bright colours, in his clothes and in his home. “To me, it’s hard to wear black. I find it quite a draining colour.”

 

Fashion always seemed a way to escape the greyness of his native Manchester and enter a more colourful world, and he pursued it with a single-minded determination. At 17, he was the youngest student on the fashion and print degree course at Central Saint Martins. With hindsight, he says, this was probably a mistake. “I didn’t really know what my style was at college. I’d never say I regret going, but if I had that time again I’d have gone in my early twenties. It was really tough, competing with students who had experience behind them and some clarity about what they wanted to do.”

 

In his third year, he took his first trip to India, where the bright saris and the skill of the craftsmen he met in Mumbai and Delhi opened up new possibilities. “I became fascinated with the country and the culture. It was the opposite from where I was born and brought up.”

 

The designs his travels inspired went against the prevailing trend for understated, androgynous clothes. He used bold prints, bright colours and went for an unashamedly feminine feel, with details such as beading that often made his pieces look like vintage finds. The resulting boho but chic feel was perfect for girls who had grown up with rave culture, who liked to dress up but also loved going to Goa, Ibiza, even Glastonbury – which is exactly why Jade, Kate and Sienna were initially drawn to his work.

 

“It’s definitely not about me creating a uniform or a working wardrobe,” he says. “It’s much more of a lifestyle collection. I want the wearer to feel exuberant and special. Not in a garish way or a glitzy, obvious way, but my customer definitely wants to walk into a room and be noticed.”

 

It was his then boyfriend, Joseph Velosa, who encouraged him to send some samples that he’d had made up in India into Vogue. When the magazine said they’d write about him if he could show some sales, it was Joseph who worked out the costings, drew up an order form and got shops to take them. After the first show, when orders flooded in from prestigious stores all over the world, Joseph stopped their fledgling company overstretching by choosing to supply to just four of the stores. “Even then, he worked out that we’d have probably gone bust if we’d taken all those orders and then couldn’t fulfil them.”

 

In the early years, Joseph worked part-time at Air France while Matthew designed for the M&S Autograph range to keep the company afloat. (He still has a successful diffusion range with Debenhams, and this year did a collaboration with H&M.) Later, when they separated as lovers, there was never any doubt that they’d continue as friends and business partners. 

 

“It strengthened our working relationship in lots of ways, because we were out of each others’ pockets and in separate homes,” says Matthew. “It was difficult, don’t get me wrong. There was a period of time in which it was uncomfortable. But we had a lot at stake, so we just had to work through it.”

 

Matthew’s parents also played a big part early on, selling their house in Chorlton and coming to London to help. His mum sewed the cashmere jumpers together after that first show; his dad did everything from painting walls to delivering clothes. They’d planned to come down for three months, but ended up staying for seven years. By then, his mum, who only ever wears Matthew Williamson, was working part-time in the London shop. She was a brilliant saleswoman, her son says proudly, often encouraging mums who’d come in with their daughters to try things on. “The mothers would be like, ‘Oh no, it’s not for me; it’s for skinny blonde 20 year olds.’ And my mum would say, ‘Look, I’m 60! So it’s clearly not. Let’s work it out.’”

 

This inclusiveness is what I like about Matthew Williamson, and despite the recession he has plans to expand his colourful world still further: he is showing a small menswear collection this year and is launching a range of homewares with Debenhams. But he’ll be 38 next month, and though he’s still working just as hard, he’s also more relaxed about the future, less driven. 

 

“I’m getting less anal about plans as I grow older,” he says. “I hope I’ll carry on doing what I’m doing, but I’ll only do it while it makes me happy.”

 

Matthew Williamson’s show is on today at 1pm at7 Howick Place, SW1

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