EVERY DESIGNER remembers their first piece of garment they designed or put together. Matthew Williams is no exception.
The 26-year-old aspiring designer happened upon his love of design by chance.
The former Foundation student was studying psychology at the University of the West Indies (“doing medicine was too expensive”) when he left to attend the Barbados Community College to do nursing.
He needed scrubs for classes.
“My mum had a sewing machine and I took apart an old scrub and saw how they put it together. It took me only two days to do mine.”
It was partly also to impress his mum, a seamstress. She picked at some stuff but for the better part it passed inspection.
When he saw that he had some amount of talent he started watching videos and
doing research.
“I saw a lot of designers that I admired their work and said I wanted to do what
they did.”
Matthew started making some shirts and pants for himself, with guidance by mum.
He then became more adventurous, making a pants and shirt for his dad.
Then BMEX 2014 came around and he saw it as a perfect opportunity to get some public feedback.
“I had some real panic attacks. It was a small collection of eight pieces but it was very, very stressful. I only had a couple of weeks to put it together and I was worried how it would be perceived.”
The worrying was in vain. The collection Bouji Boy was well received with many orders for the pieces on the spot.
It was a dipped dyed collection using the colours white, black and yellow.
“The dyeing took me two days and the stitching of the pieces a week. The name of the collection was my nickname from my boyhood days.”
The all-male collection was based on the fact that it was “easier for me to make the shirts and pants since I was used to making them for myself. I didn’t want to go into unfamiliar waters doing women pieces and mess it up.”
Matthew said the hardest part of the collection was making the pants in different lengths.
“I wanted to make nice, tailored pants so it was a lot of work. I ripped apart and started over many times.”
Matthew said it was a tiny bit of a challenge to get the colours in the dyeing part right.
“The black wasn’t intended to look that way but the mistake worked in the end.”
Matthew is looking forward to doing another collection soon.
“I am still learning . . . . I don’t even call myself a designer . . . . I have the vision already for the new collection and I am sticking to the yellow I used as an extension of the male collection but no dyeing this time,” he said laughing.
