After two years of working from his home in York, England, screen-printing and tie-dyeing shirts, filming collections inside the local church, and asking the neighbors around the corner to hand-make cable-knit sweaters, Matty Bovan finally busted out of town and made his way to America.
The craft-loving designer, who took home the 2021 International Woolmark Prize and the Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation, spent time with his boyfriend in the Connecticut countryside last year.
He whiled away the days knitting, observing the local culture, and paying visits to local attractions including the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Conn., and museums displaying traditional crafts, including quilts and rag rugs.
The result was a collection of Americana through Bovan’s kaleidoscope eyes, with clashing bits of gingham and check whipped into the ruffles on a long skirt; Holly Hobbie-meets-Wizard of Oz apron dresses done in denim or Liberty fabrics; faded jeans sprinkled with heat-pressed sparkles, and star-spangled pouf skirts.
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“America is very easily parodied, and I wanted to take these iconic symbols and subvert them,” Bovan said from under a curtain of long dark blue hair, and with thick black American football stripes under his eyes, just like the models.
This season those models were all men — Bovan wanted a change of pace — and said he’s always thought of his clothes as gender-neutral.
Models wore baseball jackets and T-shirts that had been sliced up and stitched back together, stretch velvet tops that had USA written in big, garish letters, and long, languid knits, like bathrobes, with colors and designs that riffed on the American flag.
Bovan’s collections are always an eruption of color and texture, with the gingham pieces and painted jeans — some with childlike handprints on them — among the standouts.
There was a sustainable angle, too, with Bovan working with deadstock including Calvin Klein denim, Vivienne Westwood tailored jackets, and electric-bright Adidas fabrics for billowy dresses and cape concoctions, the latter of which reflected his sunny mood.
Bovan took his bow by dashing around the winding catwalk at warp speed and said he’s excited to be back to showing live after so long. “I missed the energy of a live show — the feedback, the intimacy, the fun.”