Before this show began, many in the Alyx audience were content to down the white wine and hatch plans for the after-party. Many others wondered if it would ever start. After 45 minutes the speaker stacks out in Via Ventura rumbled to life. Out came tailored peak lapel jackets and a topcoat in black, or black and brown, both with angled, popper-fastened cargo pockets at the tricep and chain-edged collars. Grommeted, zip-up, raw-edged sleeveless jackets in treated canvas featured matte relief crossbar-free “A” logos that were repeated on the breast of Matthew M. Williams’s favorite-cut button up shirt. Worn with similarly crisp white cotton pants, this created a sensei vibe Williams said he could get behind.
This crisp look was the first to feature a dainty ballet-slipper shoe style with a new enclosed variation of the FiveFingers sole Williams said he and his team had developed in partnership with Vibram. They seemed all the daintier in contrast to the business as usual mega molded sole boots, this time presented with original (and therefore Australian) Ugg-length low-calf uppers that came in a mix of finishes, including leopard.
In the second half of the show these big boots were presented with four or five variations of a capri-esque pant, which, despite its chichi (but also schlumpy) associations, worked well. If you scrunched up your mental eye a little, there was something a little postindustrial-punk pant about them. And like them or not, it was fun to see a queasily unfamiliar combination—inspired by a Wolfgang Tillmans photograph entitled Gedser—in a collection that Williams said he’d styled himself. He elaborated: “I just wanted it to be very pure. Just like looks that I would wear. Very direct, not over-styled, and immediate.”
Treated multipocket shorts, liner gilets, and oversized jackets with rollercoaster buckles—all of them in leather—were also part of the narrative. What looked like greasy-effect denim was cut into full volumed separates. Full-armed canvas sweatshirts and a false tee-sleeve over long-sleeve top worn with those comely capris made for new tracksuit silhouettes. Williams and his longtime design director Lee Roach fashioned a subtly distorted spring wardrobe of false-flag work-to-street-to-eveningwear staples tonight.
