Lee Mathews’s clothes do a lot of work for their wearer. They have plenty of pockets, forgiving silhouettes, and are made of heavy drill cotton to accentuate the good and conceal the bad. They are made tough to withstand daily wear and yet also delicately enough to make even the most hardcore woman feel a little bit lovely. Season after season, Mathews sticks true to her formula of workwear-meets-womenswear; it’s what has made her a favorite in her native Australia.
For fall 2020, she shot her look book in front of the Moreton Bay fig trees in Sydney’s Centennial Park. At her showroom in Paris’s Marais area, a cool 10,000 miles away, Mathews explained that the ’70s Disney flick Pollyanna had helped inspire her plaids and prairie dresses. That film—about a girl who falls from a tree—has a decidedly depressing storyline, but it ties back to what Mathews does well: make clothes that acknowledge the struggles of a woman’s daily life, while still feeling effortless. Wool overshirts, pea-color trenches, and a continuation of pre-fall’s plaid suiting were highlights. Alongside an expanded rose-colored selection of knitwear and minidresses, these pieces skirt the line between essentialwear and fashion well. As she expands her business internationally, it’s this type of dressed-up enough garments that will make the Mathews way of wardrobing appeal to clients in France, Britain, Japan, and beyond.
