Matthew Williamson reveals his colorful inspirations at FIT

A book’s content is usually more important than its presentation, but for fashion designer Matthew Williamson, readers can tell a lot about a book by the shocking pink hue of its inside cover.

Williamson appeared in conversation with Harper’s Bazaar features editor Laura Brown and the director of the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology Patricia Mears at FIT on Thursday night. The event marked the release of fashion historian Colin McDowell’s new book about the designer, simply titled “Matthew Williamson.”

Brown, a longtime pal of Williamson and a self-professed fan of his designs—she donned a spectacular gold-beaded Williamson creation for the event—was given the floor to begin the discussion. She held open a copy of the book as evidence and asked Williamson about the origins of his love for the distinctive shade of neon pink.

When he debuted his first collection of eleven dresses in 1997, Williamson said, he was caught backstage by a “really important journalist from British Vogue,” who named the pink dresses as her favorites and that the designer “should always do a pink dress.” The pink hue’s success was inadvertent, but Williamson’s work with color is something that he acknowledges has defined his work. “I was born in Manchester, a pretty grey industrial city,” he said, “and after leaving Manchester, moving to London, studying at St. Martin’s, I wanted to express something different than the environment I was brought up in.”

Speaking to the hordes of fashion students in the audience, Brown and Mears questioned Williamson on his inspiration and success. Extensive travel to India, he said, fueled his conception of the exotic and otherworldly, and his line has since built upon that aesthetic. “The first show I did was simple, naive, and we didn’t really have an agenda at the time,” he said. “Now there is much more of a conscious decision to create this wonderful fantasy of a woman who is bohemian, with a laid-back sense of glamour and jetset.”

Williamson struggled as the youngest member of his 60-person class at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London to find his creative identity, but when he began building his first collection, his story turned rather charmed. He struck up a friendship with Jade Jagger, who initially called Williamson to request to keep a skirt she had worn on a British Vogue shoot, and she suggested that he stage his first fashion show. Within a few weeks, Helena Christensen and Kate Moss were walking down the runway in the dresses that launched Williamson’s line into fashion editorials and public awareness.

Now memorialized in the glossy pages of McDowell’s book, Williamson’s story is certainly the fodder of fashion school dreams. But speaking in FIT’s intimate Katie Murphy Amphitheatre, he responded to audience questions with the caveat that success is an ongoing project. He might go to the cinema with Madonna and dine with Karl Lagerfeld, but even established designers have to have strong visions and thick skins. “It’s got to be in your blood and run through your veins,” Williamson said.

Even as he launches collaborations with H&M and Bvlgari and prepares to launch contemporary sister line Muse to his main label, Williamson said “there are times when we’re not in fashion.” Still, he tries to ride the wave and stay true to his aesthetic—which still, to this day, is drenched in shocking color.