Professor Matthew Bovan

Boomerang questions the construction of identity, authorship and ideas of personal ‘brand’ in the age of social media, where over 95 million images are posted on Instagram every day. The image-led social network, which is owned by Facebook, states in its terms that the user grants ‘non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use their content’. Bovan is drawing attention to the fact that most of us are already willing participants in the distribution of our images to the unseen masses. Visitors will be invited to choose from a range of sculptural fashion designs created by Bovan, and be photographed wearing them. Visitors will not be allowed to take their own photo, as the project will be documented with a collection of images that will only be used in a printed publication and never shared online. At a time where the average concentration of an artwork or image is three seconds, participants will be encouraged to engage with his wearable artworks for a minimum of 10 minutes, in an attempt to construct a new self-image that will be captured in a unique way, blurring sculpture, fashion and photography.

Girlness asks the question: What does it mean to be a girl in Britain in 2017? Commissioned by Barbie on its 58th anniversary to make a new collection for their dolls, and a film celebrating girlhood, Bovan chose to explore the subject through the lens of identity, gender and feminism.   ‘Bovan, known for his bright, texture-heavy collections, has created a capsule Barbie collection featuring unisex T-shirts, badges, and stickers featuring his distinctive hand-drawn graphics’, wrote Danielle Wightman-Stone in Fashion United. The 2-minute film Girlness portrays young women wearing similarly striking clothes in a suburban context, talking about what it is to be young women.   The collection retailed at Fashion East pop-up space, Selfridges, London, and was reported in British Vogue; WWD; Fashion United; ID magazine; Dazed; The Fashion Network; and V Magazine. Girlness was screened at Mayfair Collective, with a panel discussion including Susie Bubble and Zoe Broach, Head of Fashion, RCA. British Vogue did an eight-page feature on Barbie’s sixtieth anniversary (September/Autumn, 2019), commissioning Bovan to make a new outfit.   Though commissioned by Barbie – historically, upholders of binary gender values – the collection and the film Girlness show how androgynous adolescent femininity has become. However, while the girls’ colourful outfits and make-up are reminiscent of experimental art band Chicks on Speed, they aren’t presented as ‘deviations’ from the norm; rather, Girlness implies the end of such norms. The contrast between the suburban backdrop and the girls’ appearances recalls documentaries on punk, in which Jordan – star of Derek Jarman’s Jubilee – is seen travelling from her Sussex home to work at Malcolm McClaren’s shop Sex. The subtext being that, where Jordan would have been abused en route to London because of her appearance, these girls don’t have to leave their neighbourhoods to enjoy the stylistic freedom she and other pioneers helped establish.

Reinterpreting a carved chimneypiece depicting the ‘Dance of Death’, JUST/UNJUST parses the concepts of damnation and salvation though the language of fashion, performance and sculpture. In the installation, based on an example from Burton Agnes Hall, Yorkshire, scarecrows displace skeletons as arbiters of judgement in the danse macabre, these more profane symbols examining how our secular culture processes theological themes.   New garments by Bovan and objects by Mullen and Leach become ‘liturgical’ instruments in a ritualistic danse macabre performed by the artists, a projected video of this frenzied destruction forming the backdrop against which the scarecrows (made from salvaged materials) are seen for the show’s duration. These sport Bovan’s bespoke garments alongside appropriated and made objects, ‘symbols of earthly vanity’: crowns, gold, money. Trampled underfoot during the performance, some of these occupy display cases – enshrined relics from another time and world – while others litter the floor.   For the London Design Biennale, Bovan represented the City of Leeds, who commissioned JUST/UNJUST with £25,000 funding. He spoke at the Frieze Art and Fashion Summit, and the Evening Standard ran a feature titled: “How Matty Bovan became one of the UK’s most exciting and subversive designers”. Coinciding with his catwalk show at London Fashion Week, JUST/UNJUST brought Bovan’s work to new audiences in the trans-disciplinary context of Somerset House, which pioneers new models of creativity in which artists, designers and small businesses share a common cultural space.   Influenced by artist Anne Hardy, British folk craft, and Wael Shawky’s puppets, JUST/UNJUST uses the aesthetics of destruction to re-examine the new. The fashion collection, arguably the most potent symbol of the new, is morally inflected, the installation’s title taken from the grouped figures in the original chimneypiece: the Just, about to be received by angels, and the Unjust, shortly to be claimed by the Devil.

A large-scale multi-media exhibition comprising films, paintings and interactive elements.

Fashion collection, AUTUMN/WINTER 2021, “ODYSSEY”, London Fashion Week Digital, FEB 2021

Fashion collection, SPRING SUMMER 2022, “HYPERCRAFT”, London Fashion Week Digital, 17 September 2021

For his Autumn/Winter collection at Tate Tanks in 2017, Bovan researched Medieval York and Sci-Fi films. His designs fused the influences from medieval York with Sci-fi references from Dune, Alien and Blade Runner whilst critiquing (tongue-in-cheek) the idea of corporation by making corporate labels for his unique one-off designs. Bovan’s assemblage method is to fuse the medieval with the futuristic whilst embracing materials and textiles (mixing dystopian aesthetic with kitchen-sink craft) that other designers would discredit as gross such as velour or aertex and making these taboo fabrics desirable. “The futuristic influences vie with the ancient to create something which can’t be placed anywhere but in the present. Scrim skirts are built around belts made from mountaineering cord and industrial buckles. Wools in drudgy grass and clay colours are enlivened with metallic thread, iridescent details and sequins. The preindustrial landscape meets the postindustrial as natural materials intertwine with fluorescent synthetics. Accessories include handmade acrylic visors, slightly sci-fi but asymmetric like the rest of the collection; jewellery made from driftwood, diamanté and bits of chandelier; bags provided by Coach customised with paint, machine embroidery and appliqué, with straps made from woven mountaineering cord; and spray-painted hiking shoes.” The context for disseminating the work was Tate Tanks at Tate Modern as part of Fashion East, an initiative to support emerging designers with an audience of 600. The media covered the collection in WWD (22.02.2017). The British Fashion Awards recognise creativity and innovation in fashion, celebrating exceptional individuals whose imagination and creativity has broken new ground in fashion globally over the past twelve months as well as brands and businesses that have transformed the possibilities of fashion today. The Fashion Awards 2018 voting body, made up of 2000 key members of the fashion industry across 32 countries, was invited to put forward their preferences for each award and nominations were made in ten categories with the five brands/individuals receiving the most nominations shortlisted in each. Following his Autumn/Winter collection Matty Bovan was shortlisted in 2017 for Emerging Talent: Womenswear. American Vogue voted Bovan one of the top ten shows of London’s Fall 2017 collection.

In fashion, certain fabrics, textiles and silhouettes tend to get written off. In Uncertain Times uses these to explore the idea of the scapegoat. What is the style of the outcast? Here, it is a kind of glamour on the hoof. These could be clothes made for people who are fleeing something: hybridity predominates, individual garments looking like collisions between other garments. These subtly political methods address the wider question of what it means to be British now.   A York-based designer supporting northern industry, Bovan uses factories in Sheffield and Leicester, numerous iterations of each garment being worked through before arriving at something unique that cannot be re-made. Knitted and crocheted elements by local artisans consolidate this uniqueness, with jewellery fashioned from chair spindles by a wood-turner, shaped by Bovan’s mother into talismans carried by the models. The collection draws on research into northern English history, notably the Pendle Witch trials. Combined with prints from Liberty Fabric Archives, these ‘pariah’ elements become symbolically vindicated, contrasting vectors of Englishness meeting in a single garment.   The collection was shown at London Fashion Week 2019 as part of the British Fashion Council’s NewGen initiative for emerging designers. Seen by 1000 people and sponsored by Mac, Babyliss, Coach and Gina, the collection generated much press interest including features in the Evening Standard magazine (22.03.2019) and The New York Times Style magazine (19.02.2019).   Bovan’s collection made Vogue’s top ten shows of London Fashion Week. According to Vogue, Vivienne Westwood ‘gave Bovan a hearty personal benediction at his last show, praising his DIY craftiness and hailing him as a new punk’. Like Westwood, In Uncertain Times offsets transgression with conformity, seeing clothes not just as expressing ‘contemporary’ style, but as sites where past and present collide, ‘historicising’ the wearer even as they move into the future.

Shot a lookbook at Burton Agnes Hall in Yorkshire, on myself, and photographed using self timer.

Vigilamus investigates what happens when a fabric associated with primness – Houndstooth tweed – is used to convey feelings of romance. Bovan’s garments are more redolent of a mystical other-worldly character than the demureness with which this pattern is often associated, woven at such enlarged scales it is awakened to new possibilities.   This is taken to apocalyptic extremes, fabric edges left ragged, fake furs decorated with black paint to suggest roadkill. Researching the history of tweed, Bovan identified chunky yarns to give this geometric pattern a rich earthiness, further enhanced by taffetas, velours and teddy bear furs. Combining handmade and cutting-edge technologies, the knitwear is raw, woven and knitted panels in various colours and textures that meet at ‘off' angles, ridges and spines further queering the silhouette associated with Houndstooth. The colours of the North Yorkshire Moors predominate, adding atmospheric effect, the grid of the tweed sometimes contrasted with bleached denim.   Sponsored by Wool & the Gang, Marc Jacobs and British Fashion Council, Vigilamus featured in ID magazine; Love magazine; Dazed; Vogue; Financial Times; The New York Times Style Magazine; and the Elle List for 2018. Paul Flynn headlined his Evening Standard feature ‘How Matty Bovan became one of the UK’s most exciting and subversive designers’; while The Guardian’s cover story described Bovan as ‘Fashion’s great bright hope’.   Vigilamus is a breakthrough for Bovan, whose work is characterised by an ability to unlock the repressed romance that bubbles beneath all conservative styles. This is reflected in his nomination for The Fashion Awards 2018 in the Emerging Talent: Womenswear category, an annual award celebrating individuals who break new ground globally, transforming the possibilities of fashion. Vigilamus featured in Beazley Designs of the Year, at the London Design Museum, 2018, while the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, purchased two looks from the collection.

Took over a floor for a full installation for the opening of Dover Street Market Paris. Made a version of an apartment, to launch the capsule collection I made for them.

Fashion show held in London, part of London Fashion Week September 2023. Sponsored by Tanqueray no 10.

Personally invited to research and respond to the D&G archive and present at Milan Fashion Week, Bovan’s collection utilizes items from their archive, combined with hand-painted designs, upside-down corsets, sculptural knits and multi-layered styling. Utilizing deadstock and 80% materials and manufacturing sourced from craftspeople in the UK, Bovan refers to it as harnessed chaos, trying to capture something fluid with a net. Bovan’s research builds on his existing body of work pushing colour and texture to the extreme, drawing on his eclectic research from the Library of Congress, USA, where he investigate: sculptural silhouettes; Op art; and an exploration of magic eye and camouflage. He develops his research through collaged mood-boards before realizing his designs in 3-D on the body. Bovan explored how far you can extend the optical illusion and not be able to tell where the moving bodies and designs ended within the space. The chequerboard floor was repeated on the knitwear, scarves, gloves, tights, shoes and bags melding the fashion designs into their context. D & G supported the event by creating a temporary bespoke event space, in Navigli, Milan solely for Bovan’s show as well as providing him access to their archive, an atelier to create his collection and ten assistants to support him. The rigour in his hand-made bespoke bricolage designs include hand-painting, crochet, knitwear, moulage and innovative sculptural silhouettes. The collection received reviews in the New York Times, Vogue.com, the Guardian, Women’s Wear Daily, APnews, BOF, ELLE.com. The fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman, NYT said: “the majority of the collection was Made in York (England), exuding the fabled “touch of the hand. It offered both a reconsideration of what exactly those values mean and how they can be expanded for the current world — not to mention broader social themes of punk, royalty and inclusivity — and a possible answer. It may not look like what anyone is used to. But shouldn’t that be the point?” Recognition for Bovan’s contribution to Fashion design came with the Woolmark Prize, 2021 and the Karl Lagerfeld award for innovation.