Three years ago the fashion designer Matthew Williamson quietly moved to Mallorca, closed his shops and began to wind down the fashion arm of his brand. There was no grand finale catwalk show or overblown press release, simply an absence from the 2016 London Fashion Week programme and an announcement that he was moving to online sales only.
Such a restructuring wasn’t that unusual at the time: catwalk shows were widely agreed to be losing their allure, and sales in bricks and mortar shops were dipping. And yet, such was the absence of accompanying fanfare, no one in fashion thought for a minute this might mean no more dresses from a luminary renowned for what US Vogue high priestess Anna Wintour once described as “bright bubbly prints and unabashedly pretty clothes”. After all, Williamson was at the top of his game; his statement gowns regularly made the red carpet thanks to long-standing A-list fans such as Sienna Miller and Thandie Newton. But, dial it all down he did, for his creativity had found a new form of expression – interior design.
And so it is that we are sitting in the balmy Balearic sunshine in Deià, a picturesque village on the western flank of Mallorca, which Williamson now calls home. It’s also the location of the exclusive and very cool Belmond La Residencia hotel – formerly owned by Richard Branson and now a favoured haunt of Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss – where he has just finished a bespoke suite of rooms.
And who could blame him? “The fashion circus is relentless,” Williamson explains of his geographical and professional move. “Four shows a year, with the endless pressure to do more and fight harder for less and less prime retail space.” In short, he felt “increasingly squashed between the might and money of the Chanels of this world, and the intrigue factor of the newbies. It was really scary to get off that wheel,” he admits. “But I was tired of the merry-go-round. I don’t know if I’ve jumped off a cliff, but the live/work aspect of running a business for 22 years? There’s only so much oil in my tank.”
Besides, all the time the frocks were grabbing the headlines, Williamson had been stealthily amassing an impressive lifestyle portfolio. As far back as 2003 he collaborated with the Rug Company on a series of carpets using prints from his ready-to-wear range. Then came stationery for luxury leather merchants Smythson and, in 2008, wallpaper for Habitat. Since 2012, following the success of his diffusion fashion label for Debenhams, he has created a biannual homewares collection for the brand, ranging from colourful bedlinen to embroidered cushions.
However, the collaboration which really distinguished him was his first collection in 2013 with Osborne & Little, purveyors of fine fabrics and wallpaper. With this, the hand-painted peacocks and humming birds which became synonymous with his clothing were now available to upholster our sofas and paper our walls. This debut was swiftly followed by commissions to decorate the bridal suite at Aynhoe Park, a 17th-century stately home in Oxfordshire; the courtyard garden at the Kensington boutique hotel Blakes and, in 2016, an entire range of furniture and lighting for the British manufacturer Duresta. A fifth collection for Osborne & Little will launch in September.
“Stopping fashion and moving into interiors felt like a genuine progression,” he says. “I’m simply continuing what I’ve established as a fashion designer and expressing it in a new form. It’s a very exciting time.”
Williamson’s consistently rich aesthetic was set right at the beginning of his career as a reaction to the perceived greyness of his native Manchester. “Every collection I’ve ever done has been inspired by nature in one form or another, the more exotic the better. Exotic countries and sun-drenched landscapes are what really capture my imagination.”
The move to Deià, tucked into the foothills of Mallorca’s Tramuntana mountains, chimed with this need. The village also has a long-established artistic heritage thanks to creative locals new and old, from the author and poet Robert Graves to the Polish model Anja Rubik. “I fell in love with Deià the moment I arrived,” says Williamson. “A year later, I bought a small house and have loved every minute of renovating it. Next I want to create a painting studio/office space so I can work from home.”
The passion for interiors was always there, starting with Williamson’s childhood bedroom. Before he left home, his final look was “a ghastly lavender shade from Homebase for the walls, with silver paint for the woodwork”. Photographs of an early bedsit in Gray’s Inn Road reveal a tiny kitchen with vivid pink cupboards covered with images of tea cups snipped from a roll of wrapping paper. His subsequent studios, shops and homes have regularly been featured in glossy magazines, often making the cover because they were seductive in a way that made you seriously consider the possibilities of a turquoise bathroom.
And now this latest project at “La Res”, as the famed Mallorcan hotel is popularly known, looks set to assuage any doubts about his transition to interiors. The deluxe Suite 67, one of the largest in the hotel with its wraparound terraces, outdoor snug and private pool, is an accomplished assemblage of pieces and papers from his various collections. It is peppered with quirky touches which will no doubt become his interior hallmarks: a judicious use of pale pink and aquamarine, marabou feather-trimmed lamps, hand-painted vintage furniture and gloriously detailed wallpaper used unexpectedly on ceilings and inside cupboards. As he puts it: “I’m fascinated with creating spaces which evoke a sense of joy, optimism and personality; spaces which marry a sort of rustic earthiness with touches of grandeur and decadence. Much like my clothes, I guess.”
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