Matthew Williamson

Matthew Williamson is a British fashion designer born in Birmingham. He graduated in Fashion Design and Printed Textiles. The designer founded his luxury fashion house, Matthew Williamson, in February 1997 together with the CEO, Joseph Velosa. His debut collection, 'Electric Angels', presented at London Fashion Week in 1997, brought him a lot of success. The collection was characteristic for exotic shades, a lot of details of fashion pieces and Williamson’s signature aesthetic. Thanks to his following collections he internationally renowned designer and attracted wider audience commercially. The first flagship store by Matthew Williamson was opened at 28 Bruton Street, Mayfair, London in 2004. Parallel with working in his own fashion house, Matthew Williamson was working as Creative Director at LVMH owned Italian house, Emilio Pucci in 2005. In 2007 TSM Capital acquired a significant equity stake in Matthew Williamson Holdings Ltd. Baugur Group, after investments in the company in 2006. The company's founders, however, retain the majority stake in the company. The house of Matthew Williamson celebrated its 10th anniversary in business by organizing a show at London fashion week and a retrospective exhibition called "Matthew Williamson – 10 Years in Fashion" at the Design Museum, London. One of the most important awards that the designer received are the Red Carpet Designer of the Year at the 2008 British Fashion Awards, Elle Designer of the Year in 2004 and the 2005 Moet and Chandon Fashion Tribute Award. He has also been nominated 3 times for Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards. The company started spreading its business oversees and its first US flagship store in New York and a retail store in the Dubai Mall, Dubai. Online business was started by the launch of online stores for the UK, Europe and US. In 2010 and 2011 Williamson turned to design of menswear range, which was available exclusively at Harrods and Matthew Williamson flagship stores. Colin McDowell wrote a book on Matthew Williamson in 2010 and it was accompanied with a foreword by Sienna Miller, and contributions from Anna Wintour, Alexandra Shulman and Diane Von Furstenberg. The book was promoted with an accompanying photographic exhibition. A diffusion line was launched in 2010: MW by Matthew Williamson, which will be more affordable to a wider audience. The line is designed in collaboration with Italian company Mariella Burani Fashion Group. The house of Matthew Williamson now produces 4 women’s collections annually. Along with clothes, the house offers other products such as belts, scarves and perfumes, of course. The first fragrance by the house appeared in 2005 – women’s fragrance Matthew Williamson, which received the winner of FiFi 2006 award for the best commercial campaign. Designer Matthew Williamson has 6 perfumes in our fragrance base. The earliest edition was created in 2005 and the newest is from 2007. The nose who worked on the fragrances is Clement Gavarry.