Making Moves

“For me, craft is the ultimate luxury,” says fashion designer Matty Bovan from his studio in York, and if anybody is well-positioned to make a case for its power, it’s him. Since the British designer graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2015, he has propelled the humblest of handiwork into fashion’s cutting edge; gleefully subverted crochet, vibrant loopy knits, supersized iridescent paillettes, screen-printed and hand-painted illustrations, heat-pressed vinyl and rhinestones. The breadth of the designer’s chosen techniques is evidence of his appetite for artisanal making. But he’s still selective: “I have to be turned on by either the yarn or the stitch,” he says. “It has to excite me.”

In turn, the results “turn on” the aficionados drawn to his shows and to wear his pieces. In 2021 he won both the International Woolmark Prize and the Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation, and he has twice been nominated for Emerging Womenswear Designer at the Fashion Awards. He counts iconic milliner Stephen Jones, Marc Jacobs and Miu Miu, as collaborators (among many others). Even seven years after his final collection opened CSM’s graduate show, Matty’s star continues to rise, the worlds he creates evolving anew each season.

Elevated though his circles now are, his passion for making remains rooted at home – in York, the city where he grew up and still lives. “York inspires me in ways, but my whole world here is very self-contained – it’s my own private universe,” he says. He is only too happy to celebrate the place where fashion became his focus. “I first remember being at my grandma’s house as a child, and being fascinated by her remnants of knitting yarn. That’s when I asked her to teach me. I must have been around ten or 11 years old, and I never looked back. It amazed me how you could create something from almost nothing.”

Things quickly escalated. “I was desperate to find out how fashion made knitted garments, and through a chance conversation aged 15, I found out that my grandma’s friend had a knitting machine she didn’t want, so I never looked back,” Eventually this fascination led him to study knitwear at Central Saint Martins. “Of course I learnt it all totally wrong and backwards, but I had so much fun.”

Matty’s Spring/Summer 2022 collection paid homage to that domestic setting that gave birth to his fashion practice. Inspired by a collection of his family photographs from the 1970s, along with some flowery wallpapers, old blankets and beloved trinkets from his grandmother’s house, the collection paired the familiar – crochet squares, wallpaper prints – with Matty’s wildly unconventional perspective. What he has called “granny knitting” was layered over retro-patterned pieces. Garments were deconstructed and then extravagantly put back together, to create voluminous new shapes that appeared as if exploded. With the fashion week schedule taken partly online by the ongoing effects of the pandemic, it was further stylised through the lens of filmmaker Ruth Hogben: the film placed all of the models within the confines of a 1970s dolls’ house – little made very large.

In fact, the SS22 collection paid tribute to the home in more ways than one – out of necessity it was more or less made there, too. While Covid-19 brought manufacturers to a standstill, essentially putting the fashion industry, with its relentless pace and insatiable appetite for the new, on ice, Matty’s emphasis on craft simply redoubled. He was able to make almost all of the collection from his studio in York, seeking out creative solutions to the logistical problems he encountered. For example, “I work with a woman locally who is an incredible hand-knitter,” he says. Those duties that couldn’t be outsourced, he took care of himself, happily self-sufficient. “It’s very important to me to have my hand felt throughout the pieces.”

While Covid-19 had Matty working on his own pieces, craft experienced a resurgence in the wider public, a new wave of makers finding creative freedom while locked-down at home. Knitting, crocheting, quilting, and jewellery-making became new pastimes – and as people around the world became more and more enamoured with both the psychological benefits and the physical output of making, the fashion industry followed, shining a new light on craftsmanship. “[Craft] never really went out of fashion,” Matty says of this renewed recognition of craft. Instead he sees a new generation looking more closely at the origins of what they wear. “Social media has actually made young people question how things are made, and where they are made. They are also learning techniques, such as macramé, tie-dye, knitting and crochet, as they want to make their own clothes and textiles. Which I love!”

Matty looked to the pandemic more explicitly for the Autumn Winter 2022 collection that followed. Entitled Cyclone, it was about “a force that causes chaos and destruction – even beauty – in the wake of its power.” The designer spent several months living in Bridgewater, Connecticut while working on it, and Americana became the central theme of the show. Garments focused on and exploded American idiosyncrasies and symbols, from stars and stripes to bomber jackets, American football silhouettes and blue denim.

Some of the pieces took pre-existing garments from other designers – Vivienne Westwood, Adidas, Converse All-Star, Alpha Industries, and Calvin Klein among them – and reinterpreted them. “I see them as ready-made,” Matty says. “These items already exist in mass quantities, so why would I try and make my own versions when I can collaborate with other brands who have this stuff sitting there? It makes sense in so many ways.”

It’s an approach he has used several times, collaborating with his contemporaries to subvert and redefine the DNA of their garments. “They are usually coded – like denim, bomber jackets – and I have fun interrupting their already-coded existence.” It’s a punk approach, but it speaks to sustainability, and to the power of working with your contemporaries.

Matty’s eagerness to extend his creative universe has already taken him beyond the confines of the fashion industry. In 2016 he worked with art institution House of Voltaire to publish Yorkshire Rosé, a zine which amplified aspects of his own personality through sinister, off-kilter beauty looks shot in humdrum scenes around his York locale. Then in October 2021, he launched Boomerang at Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Bothy Gallery, a sold-out immersive, participatory installation which interrogated the idea of identity and authorship, and who controls it. Guests were invited to give up their phones, and to engage with a collection of wearable artworks in front of a mirror for a minimum of ten minutes, their photograph shot from behind its surface to be used as part of a printed publication – but never shared online. In an age when we are so willing to capture and disseminate our image to platforms which duly own it, it probes our ideas of who we are, how we become that person, and who profits from that becoming.

As for this year? First, the designer will show his Spring/Summer 2023 collection, which will take place as part of Milan Fashion Week in September, with the support of Dolce & Gabbana. “I feel very lucky,” he says of the new alliance. “Italy adores craft, and I’m excited to showcase this in their beautiful country. Dolce & Gabbana have always pushed traditional crafts but made it feel so modern and relevant, so I feel it makes a lot of sense to connect with them over these passions.”

Then in November he lands on Greenwich Peninsula with a new commission for NOW Gallery. He can’t and won’t share any specifics yet, but he promises an exciting display, both for himself and for the Peninsula, that pushes his work in a whole new direction. “I am so excited to showcase a different side of myself to the world,” he concedes, reluctant to give anything more away. “I believe this will be inspiring, and hopefully inspire people of all ages to question the role of craft and art. “I can’t wait!” he says. And neither can we.