UK Edition
Matthew Williamson on his new daughter, voting Tory and Vogue's need for a refresh
The hallowed white-washed hallways of Vogue magazine are where a designer’s career can be made or broken. For Matthew Williamson, the man who invented boho glamour and introduced us to the show-stopping allure of pineapple and flamingo prints, it was a triumph of the former. His story, much like his designs, is one of boldness and bravado.
Aged 25 in the late Nineties, the frustrated Central St Martins graduate and former Accessorize head designer looked up a journalist at the magazine whose name he liked (Plum Sykes), sent her a postcard and arrived at the offices with a box of his designs.
The gamble paid off - the editors so loved his work that they asked to keep some for themselves, and the young Mancunian has spent the past two decades reaping the benefits of a chance well taken.
“It was through that meeting at Vogue that I met Jade Jagger and she became a friend,” he says of this baptism of fire. “Within six months I was speaking to the British Fashion Council.”
His first show - a 1997 collection called Electric Angels, featuring Jagger, Kate Moss and Helena Christensen in bright outfits - helped change the pace of fashion, which was then bogged down in minimal nineties grunge.
He has not deviated from this vivid style since, despite an industry where trends change quicker than the wind, earning him a fan base including Sienna Miller, Poppy Delevinge and Kate Middleton, plus a lucrative contract with Debenhams for his diffusion line, Butterfly by Matthew Williamson.
We meet after the launch of his latest product, a collaboration with Nivea to design an anti-stain deodorant. Williamson is full of beans, buoyed by glasses of bucks fizz and the promise of trip to Mallorca that afternoon. “I love the idea of being able to diversify into something that isn’t fashion,” he chirps - plus his mother is a fan of the brand, a fact that sealed it for him.
Slight and dressed in a blue velvet jacket, Breton top, camel trousers and loafers without socks, he describes his style as “quite low maintenance,” in between dry quips and genial comments. While not shy, exactly, he is perhaps more self-aware than you’d expect from someone who puts snarling tigers on the front of swimsuits. A few questions of my draw a gently raised eyebrow.
Now he has reached the age of 45, Williamson can also lay claim to the role of father. Sixteen-months ago he had a baby daughter, Skye, with Joseph Velosa, who he calls “my life partner and my business partner” and is chair of his company.
The pair met in Manchester, when Williamson was visiting his parents during a break from college. It was love at first sight and, buoyed by Velosa’s belief in him, they set up Matthew Williamson Ltd together in February 1997. After 12 years the relationship ended but they remain ‘soulmates’.
“We’re definitely that ying yang fit, in business and as friends,” he says. “We are very different but it works - well, it has done for 24 years I’ve known him.”
They have not made the identity of the mother public but Skye, Williamson says, now lives with him in London and “it works like any other child-parent relationship.”
There are pictures of the family on social media: Williamson beaming alongside his baby daughter and border terrier Mr Plum, another of Skye giggling in a baby carrier with a flower placed behind her ear. All look as though he has hit the familial jackpot. Though no longer formally an item, Williamson and Velosa are far from the first same-sex fashion partnership to co-parent a child.
Five years ago, Tom Ford announced the arrival of his baby son Jack (born via IVF and using a surrogate), with his partner Richard Buckley. Sir Elton John and husband David Furnish walked the same path with their two sons, Zachery, six, and Elijah, four. All say their growing broods have made them slow down and reassess life’s priorities - something you feel sure is the case for Williamson, previously a regular on the party circuit.
He inherited his lust for life and vivid sense of colour from his mother, Maureen, a retired optical receptionist, who would wear bold tulip print shirts. His father ran a television sales company and the family, including sister, Andrea, 47, now a nurse, grew up in grey middle-class Manchester.
By 14, Williamson was using a sewing machine, given to him by his parents, to make rah-rah skirts for the girls at school. He moved to London at 17 to take up a place at Central St Martins, where he was the youngest in a class of 60. When he decided to launch his own label, seven years later, his mother and father moved to the capital too - working day and night to help bring their son’s vision to life, such was their belief in his talent.
Another person to spot his potential was new Vogue editor Edward Enninful, one of the first to put Williamson’s clothes in the pages of a magazine. Considering the designer’s long association with the fashion bible - after that first meeting in the Nineties, outgoing editor Alexander Shulman has been a great champion of his work - does he sense a new order coming?
“Edward is amazing, clearly. I’ve met him many times. He is full of energy and has a brand new perspective.
“Broadly-speaking, he’ll bring new ideas and make it look super modern. It’s probably time to give it a refresh. Is it interesting that it is a man? I don’t know. I guess it has been a woman for as long as I have known it.”
He is more concerned with the changes currently affecting Britain. Williamson thinks fashion and politics are closely aligned and - with Brexit dominating the agenda - it’s a subject that seriously worries him.
“If you are in fashion now and selling products, it’s a challenging time, as it is for any industry. If you are in England and exporting, there is general concern as to what might happen. None of us know what is down the road.”
As someone who grew up in Manchester, a Labour heartland, voting for Theresa May might seem like a stretch. But will he?
“Probably,” says Williamson, nodding. Has he always voted Conservative? “No, but she has got the job, let her get on with it. What is all the fuss about? She needs to do what it says on the tin.”
He might not always have voted Tory, but Williamson is no stranger to the party’s connections, having worked with fabric and wallpaper designers Osborne & Little, owned by the parents of former Chancellor George Osborne. Sir Peter and Lady Felicity have “become allies and friends over time”.
In four years, he has produced kaleidoscopic collections for the pair, fuelled by his love of travelling.
This September marks twenty years since Williamson’s debut catwalk show - which blasted him onto the fashion scene. As a man who now commands a sprawling empire, has a young daughter and a phonebook bursting with high profile contacts, his celebration plans are surprisingly subdued.
“I am not really in the mood for bells and whistles. I’ll have a nice dinner out.” He opens his palms and laughs. “What you gonna do?”
Matthew Williamson has partnered with Nivea on a Limited Edition Black & White Deodorant designed to retain the integrity of clothes with superior anti-stain technology.
