For Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran, best known as the creative entity Matières Fécales, their fashion label’s debut on Friday is all about showing their design chops.
“For the past 10 years Steven and I have been able to show ourselves through visibility and through our message, but we never had the opportunity to our craftsmanship and patternmaking skills,” Dalton told WWD.
The trifecta of perspective, individuality and fearlessness is an idea the duo want to embed in their garments.
Rooted in their personal wardrobes and what they want to look like — otherworldly beings, in a nutshell — this inaugural lineup reads as the embodiment of their experience: on the one hand, it’s an armor and on the other, it’s a source of vulnerability for the attention it draws.
In the 35-look lineup, which will translate to around 85 stock keeping units in the Dover Street Market Paris showroom, expect a mix of strong-shouldered tailored pieces hewing close to the body and looser options ranging from cocoon-shaped bomber jackets to cozy lush knitwear. Dalton also promised “subtle ways of contorting the body — through the footwear, through the makeup and through couture elements.”
“There’s a lot of pieces that can also stand on their own, without the branding, without having to explain it — they can explain themselves — and also be integrated into all types of people’s wardrobe while keeping the same [sense] of being fearless, the values that we have and also be beautiful period,” Bhaskaran said.
With a price range that starts around 100 euros for tank tops and 600 euros for, say, tweed corsets and goes up to 5,000 euros for elaborate outerwear, there will be “something for the “mature Matières madam” looking for upscale handcraft-intensive pieces as well as a 25-year-old hankering for destroyed jeans, twisted-seam tank tops and bomber jackets, he promised.
Categories will include denim and outerwear as well as shoes, leather goods and jewelry.
“We’re also conscious of playing with different price points [and having] things that are still inviting and approachable for a younger clientele,” particularly those who currently feel underserved in today’s luxury landscape, Dalton said.
