Notre Talk 16: Matthew M. Williams

“Now, I find stores really expect you to sell from the beginning. It kind of inhibits the natural time that it takes for somebody to find their voice and grow in a natural way. If you think of Margiela, Raf, or Comme, Ann Demeulemeester—they took, like, 10 years before they really started having a business. And that was because they had stores that really believed in them. We were lucky enough to have a few that were like that. It took us around three years to four years to really start hitting our stride, and building our own voice, being able to execute on everything. That’s quick in the scheme of things. Even today, we’re still finding that. But now you have to grow under a microscope, and everybody sees all of that. Which is beautiful, but there is so much expectation, too, to be a business from the beginning, when you’re an independent company.”

— Williams on how the fashion industry has changed throughout his career

“For me, collaboration has always been about working with brands or people that could do either a product or create an image or a sculpture that’s something we could never do on our own. So, Nike with innovation, Moncler with the level of technical jackets that they do, Mackintosh with how hand-crafted those raincoats are. It’s all product categories we would never be able to make on our own. Even with Vibram—that kind of level of sole, how it’s removable, we could never do that as a small brand. It was always a way for me to get ideas out we could never do ourselves. It broadens the scope of what Alyx is. Other customers can find things that they like. I like the idea of everybody being able to find something in the brand.”

— Williams on collaboration

“Everything really needs to move towards local production. That’s what’s amazing about Italy. It’s a place still where every part of the process is made there. The zipper, the fabric, the raw material, and it just gets driven around the country. I think that’s what we’re gonna work towards in the future. The clothes or the shoes being made in the actual store is the dream. They’re just made to that person, and when that’s person done with it, they can bring it back and have it made into something else. That’s what we need to get towards. And it’s already there, actually—there just has to be enough people committing, and people accepting that things need to be different than they’re used to. We all get used to these comforts and perpetuate old models.”

— Williams on the potential of localized production