The first collection coming from the recently appointed Creative Director of Givenchy’s women’s and men’s collections in June 2020, Matthew M. Williams, incorporates women’s and men’s ready-to-wear offerings for Spring/Summer 2021 and explores Givenchy through a stream of consciousness for Williams. The co-founder of 1017 ALYX 9SM began working on the collection in the middle of the pandemic and finished it in just two months.

Viewed through the lens of Heji Shin, and led by art direction from Peter Miles Studio and styling by Lotta Volkova, the SS21 collection exhibits archive elements that point to the past, present, and future. “You find the pieces of the puzzle for a collection, building it from symbols and signs, but never forgetting the reality of the person who will wear it and bring it to life. The women and men should be powerful and effortless, equal, and joyful, a reflection of who they really are – only more so. It’s about finding the humanity in luxury,” said Williams.

The highlights from the collection include cotton Ottoman for both genders in outerwear, technical taffeta in tailoring, and structured Punto di Milano jersey in dressmaking, as well as unifying unisex hardware accessories such as the “Lover’s Lock.” It is apparent that Williams nurtures tradition and afore set notions of elegance and playfulness established by Hubert de Givenchy and Alexander McQueen, but succeeds to find space for refinement and re-contextualization. Aside from offering his take on the Antigona bag, Williams developed a new unisex Cut-Out bag and G chains that pay homage motifs tied to the history of Givenchy. To round up the inaugural range, Williams also brought in his understanding of denim to develop casual archetypes built around denim treated with technical coatings in both paint and resin.

See some of the style samples from the lookbook below.