Deirdre McQuillanmeets the acclaimed British designer Matthew Williamson, who is bringing his spring-summer collection to Dublin next week, on his first trip to Ireland
Matthew Williamson doesn't do black and white. More sari than city, the British designer's famous frocks, with their lavish embroidery and beading, decorate some of the world's most beautiful women. "My clothes are really about optimism, about celebrating a woman's body and her desire to be noticed. They have a relaxed, laid-back quality," he says when we meet in London, where his label is based, as he prepares to leave for Milan, where he is also creative director of the Emilio Pucci fashion house.
Dressed in jeans, cowboy boots and a €29 Fair Isle jacket that he bought in Bologna, he appears rather relaxed and laid back himself. His clothes belong to a certain milieu and a certain lifestyle. "I think a woman who wears a dress of mine feels that it is special, a jewel, a gem to be kept and treasured, not a uniform. That's the romantic picture that I paint for myself, anyway," he says with a disarming smile. He loves surface pattern, he says, "and a huge part of my work is embroidered or woven fabrics".
Dubliners will have a chance to judge for themselves next week, when Williamson visits Ireland for the first time, as a guest of Dublin Fashion Week, with his spring-summer collection. A love of colour is expressed in everything that surrounds him. At his label's headquarters, near Tottenham Court Road, even the clothes rails are a Day-Glo orange, and Arne Jacobsen Ant chairs in paintbox colours decorate his office.
But it is his shop, beside Stella McCartney's boutique on Bruton Street in Mayfair, that embodies his design concepts. "It says we need to be taken seriously," he says about the store, whose interior he masterminded. The current window display, staged like a horror-movie set, features a dinosaur about to pounce on a supine woman. Inside, a glasshouse installation, complete with exotic shrubs and plants, is the ornate setting for a signature silk-print dress called the Lotus, from his current collection. I'm not sure if all this makes the clothes more alluring, but it's a novel presentation.
With huge blue eyes, black hair and dark, swashbuckling looks, Williamson heads a growing empire. He has come a long way since he presented his first collection, 10 years ago, in a modest showroom in Ladbroke Grove. Modelled by Helena Christensen, Kate Moss and Jade Jagger, the small collection from the then unknown young designer from Manchester consisted of 11 outfits. "Everything was grey and masculine at the time, and I did that little collection, which was very feminine, in Day-Glo colours, and the next day it was news."
These days he shows twice a year in New York, where he will open a store in September. He has also just launched a fragrance range, to go with his spring collection. From October until January London's Design Museum will celebrate his work with an exhibition, as it has also done with Manolo Blahnik and Philip Treacy.
"Ten years on it gets tougher, decisions get bigger, the amount of money involved is greater as product lines develop and diversify. So I am working 24/7," he says.
Williamson is known for partying with famous friends such as Moss, Jagger and Sienna Miller, and he makes no secret of their importance to his success. "If celebrities want to wear your clothes and endorse your label, it is very flattering and lucrative to have a brand ambassador," he says. "I have always tried to maintain a level of integrity with those I dress. Girls like Jade, Keira Knightley and Mischa Barton have huge talent and are great ambassadors."
Williamson, who has a 35-person design team, starts each collection by examining the previous one "and being my own critic".
"We examine our strengths and use them as a foundation. I work with a design director and discuss what could be pushed forward and what is happening on the street. We will come up with some theme, a vague idea of direction and a mood board indicating colour, pattern and silks, with references from magazines. It has an organic energy."
He admits that before every show - he presents eight collections a year - he is racked with anxiety. "I know the drill, but I am petrified. I am feeling very nervous about next week," he says, referring to his third show for Pucci, in Milan, "but I am not so upset by criticism any more."
Sympathetic to up-and-coming London designers such as Christopher Kane and Marios Schwab, he knows the pitfalls of the industry. "If Christopher is smart he will be able to navigate the murky waters that lie ahead. We are not necessarily a fashion-loving nation - we are a high-street nation - and we don't have many British brands that are global advertisers except Burberry, Paul Smith and Nicole Farhi. My generation is very different. Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen are owned by Gucci, while others have gone under. I am still independent. Either a young designer packs up or shows where the power players are. The market is incredibly difficult. You are up against companies with huge products selling all over the world. It's tough."
Key factors for survival are passion, drive and a single-minded vision, he says. "You have to be clear about what you want. The most important thing was meeting my business partner, Joseph Velosa. He was a philosophy student at King's College, and we thrived on realising that his strengths were my weaknesses and vice versa. We believed in each other, and it was a perfect marriage. He remains my business partner."
His work for Pucci involves living in Bologna and Florence for part of the year. "It's a dream job. Both brands share the same DNA: there is colour, femininity, flamboyance and optimism in the clothes. There's a lot of travel - to Tokyo, Moscow, Italy and New York - but what keeps me going is that constant challenge and growth. I thrive on that. Money is not hugely important; it is great to have flexibility, but it's not my driving force, nor has it ever been. I do what I do because I love it."
Each evening, when he was growing up in Manchester, he watched his mother getting ready for work the next day, carefully selecting the clothes and jewellery she would wear. Even at 11, he says, he was subconsciously styling her and saying to himself: "Um, I don't think I'd put those earrings with that jacket." His "very meticulous" mother knew he was going "on a creative journey", he says. He went on to study at Central St Martins College of Art and Design, in the middle of London, before working for Monsoon.
His latest passions include a curly-haired American spaniel called Coco and a newly acquired period house in Hampstead's Vale of Health. "It was the only road that never got the plague," he says. "DH Lawrence lived across the road."
The exterior is white with black woodwork, but, true to form, he has already made inquiries about what colours he can paint it. "The house was owned by an architect, so everything is done. It is a real bachelor pad, all brushed silver, metal and tasteful mushroom-coloured walls. Nothing is offensive. But," he adds with an impish grin, "it won't stay like that. It won't be black and white for long."
Matthew Williamson is showing his spring-summer 2007 collection at a gala show on Wednesday. See www.dublinfashionweek.com. Williamson's website is www.matthewwilliamson.com