The Classy Fashion Week Debut of a Brand Formerly Known as "Fecal Matter"
Amidst Paris Fashion Week's quotidian glitz and expected glamour, a young brand quietly offered an alternative to the norm. Its name? Matières Fécales. If you're plugged in to the weirder side of the biz, you may be familiar with its previous incarnation as Fecal Matter.
Fecal Matter, spearheaded by Canadian duo Steven Raj Bhaskaran and Hannah Rose Dalton, was less as a clothing label than art project. Sure, it created clothes and masterminded some astonishing DIY makeup but Fecal Matter's intention was fashion provocation, not production.
And, with a purpose, mind you: Bhaskaran and Dalton are reactionaries set off by the industry's long-staid beauty norms. Fecal Matter was not a solution to lasting ills, though, nor a clever bon mot intended to cut convention to size.
Fecal Matter was instead more of a guerilla operation, popping up here and there at fashion happenings to metaphorically firebomb surrounding blandness.
And it was a more sincere affair than, say, Tommy Cash, whose eye-grabbing fashion week stunts mercifully wore out their welcome.
But like Cash, it's only thanks to social media's infinite gawkers that Fecal Matter's knowingly extreme looks, accented with horns, shaved eyebrows, warped flesh, and prosthetic feet, earned almost instant virality.
By 2019, Fecal Matter had amassed many interviews and attention, eventually finding a home amidst the cult of Rick Owens. There, its founders modeled, styled, and hung out while tinkering with their own in-house designs.
Dover Street Market, the other champion of anti-establishmentarian fashion (and longtime Rick Owens partner), finally came calling in 2024.
Last year, the COMME des GARÇONS-operated retailer signed Fecal Matter, reborn as Matières Fécales, to DSM Paris' independent designer incubator where it now lives alongside talents like ERL and Vaquera.
Matières Fécales' rebirth was complete on March 7, when it officially debuted on the Paris Fashion Week calendar with its very first runway show.
All things considered, Matières Fécales' first runway show is quite restrained. You may expect artists whose daily routines include the application of Darkthrone-level makeup to propose clothing so theatrical that even tepid takedowns like "costume-y" would be faint praise.
And, indeed, there was some crazy stuff on display — this is a Matières Fécales affair, after all. Standouts include heeled shoes so stiletto'd that they could be utilized for spear fishing and finale looks covered in feathery wraps, clearly intended as the collection's showpieces.
But at the core of Matières Fécales Fall/Winter 2025 was an assortment of remarkably grounded and, dare I say, classy garments.
Figure-clinging leather shirts, refrigerator-shaped mouton jackets, and pagoda-shouldered suiting all demonstrated the influence of the label's godfather, Rick Owens, who sat front-row.
However, pared-back trench coats, bulbous leather bombers, and a small array of impressively classic handbags, albeit sculpted to match the tailoring's peaking shoulders, all betrayed single most shocking thing about Matières Fécales: It's capable of turning out some quietly cool clothes.
Expect Matières Fécales ready-to-wear, eventually available at all Dover Street Market stores, to include even more approachable fare, including graphic T-shirts printed with the Fecal Matter founders.
Hey, even aliens gotta have something to wear on their day off.
