“YES YES BLAH BLAH BLAH YAWN.” So was inscribed the canvas by Houston’s Mark Flood, boldly installed directly opposite the section of runway by which your correspondent was standing during this all-standing Alyx show. Yet this was anything but meh. Flood, 72, is the subject of an exhibition that will be hung in the Studio Maiocchi showspace for some time hence, and which also provided much of the decoration—not all of it surface-borne—in this collection. More arch Flood signage (STAR on the front, DUM on the back) plus angry bootlegged Big Tobacco graphics were presented on the canvas of cleverly layered garment dyed sweats and distressed leathers. More intimately, colored and distressed lace that echoed the framing on some Flood paintings was rematerialized into real lace and insinuated as a treated, ripped then repaired layer on womenswear dresses—for next month's collection reveal—and in pants.
Matthew Williams upgraded his slightly severe, tech-goth aesthetic—a no-brainer if anyone ever greenlights the Neuromancer movie—with new luxury versions of modular mole portage, de-gendered moto mid layers and stacked and distressed work boots. Top coats with box cut satin peaked lapels were worn over S.W.A.T. flavored combat pants to create post-apocalypse tuxedos. Floating sheaths of technical material swathed shell-shouldered jackets that signaled strength and movement.
Williams sticks to the refrain that he just makes clothes that he wants to wear. The five-deep audience, plus the after-party crowd straining outside, suggested that he remains an avatar of broader interests. Williams’ narrative is no fashion bildungsroman—it’s much more complex, with layers as wrought and unobvious as his artisan-distressed pieces. Such is its fascination for those who follow it.
