Alyx is a New York brand in the most essential sense. While at the moment designer Matthew Williams and his wife Jenn are based in Italy to be nearer to their production, their adopted home of New York City is never far from mind. The label has come to embody in just a five seasons a lot of the best things about the city: its nocturnal leanings; its rich subcultural histories; its eclecticism; and its hard-edged, ineffable cool.
Fall’s Natural Order gave way here to a collection Williams dubbed Love Chaos, a tribute to the disorder of New York. One graphic tee carried the image of the Twin Towers while another had text that, when folded horizontally, transformed from New York into Love. Yep, despite the fact that we’re just a few weeks past the Chelsea bombing and, as Williams noted, “all is not well” in the world, the takeaway here felt plenty optimistic. (By contrast, another recent Alyx shirt reading Natural Order became Fuck You.) “There’s not statement to be made,” Williams said of the current collection. “It’s just a reflection of how I feel.”
Williams’s instinctual approach to design rarely leads him astray. The Alyx pendulum swings easily between the feminine and the boyish (not unlike the killer personal style of his wife, maybe the label’s quintessential muse). Recent collections have embraced increasingly more femme-y touches. For Spring, alongside heavy, ultra-performance oriented jackets in collaboration with Italian moto brand Spidi—a story carried over from Resort—were crisp black poplin skirts and whisper-light plissé pants which cinched with a strap at the ankle. Alyx’s singular take on tailoring continues to be a highlight; take this season’s sharp zip-front twill vest, paneled with checkerboard stretch at the waist.
This vision of femininity also has a flip side—the flash of Santa Monica Pier, or what Williams jokingly calls a bit of the “woman of the night.” She most was palpable in a couple of the season’s styling choices. See: a cherry red, snake-print vinyl mini with a matching belt worn as a bra top. Accessories on the whole continue to be one hell of a category for Alyx. Spring’s expanded offering ran the gamut from disc bags on a ball chain strap to directional styling pieces like chaps, a clear vinyl gilet, and waist-cinchers. Heeled Mary Janes bearing a tiny Alyx A stud on the toe of one shoe were standout, and you could see this season’s woven cowboy boot, with its hand-carved Lucite heel, inspiring mile-long wait lists. Another thoroughly modern nod to Americana? An inky black boater with just a bit of the brim lopped off, which made a speedy fan of even this hat-hesitant reporter. If and when Alyx decides to throw its metaphorical chapeau into the Fashion Week ring—be it in New York or elsewhere—you can bet it will be one hot ticket indeed.
