Givenchy’s Matthew M. Williams unveils a singular collaboration with the artist Josh Smith.
Matthew M. Williams’s spring 2022 show for Givenchy started with black and ended with white. Both looks—the opening one a tough neoprene number with a bustier and a zippered front; the finale a cascade of soft ribs, razor-sharp pleats, and amoeba-esque eyelets—were paradigms of the design vocabulary that Williams has been perfecting for years: vigorously technical, sexy, and serious all at once. But across many of the 70-something ensembles between the two, some very unexpected elements appeared.
On a glowing oval runway, a parade of black gave way to shades of red, camel, lilac, and pistachio. Some models carried chain-strap purses shaped like antifreeze canisters and gallon bottles of bleach; others wore jeans covered in basketballs with jack-o’-lantern faces. A series of knits featured a shadowy figure in a cloak against a pulsating rainbow of thread.