Fragrance house

Matthew Williamson

Matthew Williamson founded his namesake fashion house with Joseph Velosa in February 1997, and presented its debut collection, Electric Angels, at London Fashion Week in September that year. The label’s design identity is associated with bold colour, mixed prints, pattern, embellishment, and a bohemian, laid-back approach to glamour. For its tenth anniversary in 2007, it returned to London Fashion Week after five years of showing in New York; that year, the Design Museum also presented a retrospective of Williamson’s work. Williamson ended his fashion career in 2016 and turned to interior design, extending the use of colour and prints into interiors and homeware. Today, the Matthew Williamson design house spans fashion, interiors, homeware, and lifestyle, with creativity, colour, and style as recurring themes. In 2023, the Design Museum commissioned Williamson to transform its Design Kitchen dining space. The fragrance story began with Incense, a limited-edition 2002 collaboration with perfumer Lyn Harris of Miller Harris. In 2005, the eponymous Matthew Williamson fragrance was his first global scent release; created with Clement Gavarry, it received a 2006 FiFi award for best commercial campaign.