Matthew M. Williams Hopes His New Knit Sneaker for Givenchy, the TK-360, Pushes the Conversation Forward

On Monday night, Matthew M. Williams stood beside Rosalía at the Met Gala in New York City. The Spanish singer wore a stunning dress by Givenchy, where Williams currently serves as creative director. Her corset was covered in thousands of embroidered beads and cream-colored ruffles. Details like a metal spine, matching earrings, and set of angular black sunglasses gave a modern feel to the Gilded Age-themed look. Like many men at the annual event, Williams took a much more toned-down approach, wearing a black trench coat over a classic suit. Just 48 hours later, he was back in France and looking onward to other projects. Fresh off of a red eye flight, he sat down in front of a video camera on Zoom to discuss Givenchy’s latest footwear innovation, the TK-360. 

“It feels different than any other shoe I’ve ever worn,” says Willams when discussing his latest footwear design. The concept was born out of a personal desire to formulate newness. “I think that’s always exciting for me, to try to attempt to make something that I haven’t seen before.”

The TK-360 first debuted back in March during Givenchy’s Fall 2022 presentation at Paris Fashion Week. But it arrives at retailers for the first time today as part of the brand’s Pre-Fall 2022 collection. The $895 design will be available in a variety of tonal colorways from black and white to more seasonal pink and yellow options.

Knit sneakers have been around for years. But where the TK-360 differs, the knit is applied to the entire silhouette down to the sole instead of just being placed over top of a TPU underlay to create the shape of the upper. The shape of the toe is almost reminiscent of a dress shoe. A bulbous heel area, high arch, and Givenchy branding printed on the lateral heel make the design feel unorthodox and new. Williams knows he will have no control over how the pubic will perceive the shoe. He just hopes it can promote more innovation.

“One thing that I feel really grateful for is that I’m in a position to do something that looks really unique or extreme,” he tells Complex. “But to have the community give it a chance to try to understand it and sit with it, that’s a blessing. It can at least, if anything, push the conversation forward. And then somebody will make something even more crazy.”

Willams is already working on future installments. A black pair he is wearing during the interview has a Framis overlay and some additional grooves across the upper that adds a bit of depth to the minimal silhouette. He mentions a high-top variation. He even says he would love to explore the use of Total Knit on other shapes like women’s heels down the line. 

Total Knit is the 36-year-old designer’s latest attempt to fuse his perspective with the French fashion house since his tenure began back in June 2020. The Fall 2022 collection may have been the most exemplary case of Williams’ vision being applied to Givenchy since he started. Complex compared some of the graphic pieces to that of Been Trill, the DJ collective turned clothing brand he co-founded in the 2010s. While Williams is far removed from that era of his career, he still thinks back on it fondly. 

“It wasn’t thought of as a business or something like that. It was really about community, being together with your friends, throwing fun parties, listening to the music that you wanted to hear, putting on young artists that we were excited by on the mixtapes,” says Willams. “So, I think that time’s always gonna be really precious and special to me because it was a time where I was growing up. I was exploring the world with my friends and it was just a really free and fun time. I think that energy and time will always be an inspirational thing in my heart cause it was such great years.”

We recently got a chance to chat with Williams over Zoom about the new TK-360 sneaker, his nostalgia for Been Trill, how he has grown as a designer with Givenchy, and more.

Nike’s original lawsuit against StockX, filed in the southern district of New York in February, had nothing to do with fake sneakers. Nike brought the suit over StockX’s Vault NFT program, accusing the platform of using Nike trademarks without authorization and essentially scamming unwitting customers with Nike-inspired NFTs. StockX, in its response, says it has every right to sell the NFTs. Most of StockX’s Vault NFTs, which are digital tokens tied to physical sneakers, are based on popular Nike shoes. The lawsuit pointed out that the fine print around the Vault NFTs allowed StockX to redeem the non-fungible tokens at its own discretion. Nike’s lawsuit pulled reactions from social media to show that there was already confusion online about whether the StockX NFTs based on Nike sneakers were connected to Nike in any official way.

My take: Do StockX’s NFTs feel kind of like a scam to me? Yes, but not that much more than any given non-fungible token offering. With its Vault NFT program, StockX seems to have simply done the same thing so many other brands rushing to make money off the metaverse have by minting a bunch of digital tokens and selling them to people with the vague promise of future benefits. Oh, and they can take them away from you whenever they want. I will never buy a StockX NFT, but also I will never buy an image of a gold-chain-dripped monkey in a sailor hat.

This TK-360 sneaker releasing, I’ve seen it described as your dream shoe. Why do you feel that way about it?

I would say more, it was a dream that I had, right? It came from a swatch that I saw. A lot of my process begins with material research. I’ll be in a room with swatches of fabric, and tests, and things that I’ve asked to be done. There was all these different knit uppers that I was working on that had different patterns in them, different materials, 3D printed on top, vacuum form shapes within them, mixtures of all three. And some of the uppers were from a football cleat factory. I saw this TPU upper that as you were kicking the soccer ball would kind of give control as you were playing. And I was like, ‘Wow, this is really interesting.’ This yarn, could it be really exaggerated and beefed up and become the sole of the shoe? When I spoke to the developer, we were like, ‘Hmm, how could we do that and have it be sturdy enough to last?’ And so the research began of yarn suppliers, what the internal construction of the shoe could be like, and how we could construct and wrap the whole thing so it could just be one form. So as far as a dream, it’s more like a concept that was dreamt, I guess. And trying to just do something new with materiality and construction. I think that’s always exciting for me, to try to attempt to make something that I haven’t seen before, whether that’s form, silhouette or the way materials are used. 

I’ve heard you say before that you look at shoes as forms. Could you explain what you mean by that exactly?

Shoes really give silhouette to the look. I’m wearing the shoe right now *holds shoe up to screen*, but it’s just a crazy form. It resembles a shoe with this extreme arch and the sphere on the back. It has a different form than a shoe may traditionally have. So I think like looking at it from a silhouette standpoint and seeing what can remain, what can go, and just creating shapes with the shoe, it really changes a look. Like I’m wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants right now. But with the TK-360, it becomes a lot more extreme. I think a shoe can just really make traditional clothing or really basic fits feel modern depending on what the material is, what the shape is.

So I like that cause I like to wear really traditional stuff like button-ups or five-pocket jeans or a hoodie and sweatpants. A shoe is really something that makes it feel of-the-moment. It may be a strange thing to say, but I feel like shoes do mark certain periods in time, like what shoes were being worn at the moment, or developed, or used in a sporting event. So weirdly I always feel like the shoe is that element of an outfit that is grounded in the now. I have this balance of like, I wear either an Air Force 1 every single day, the most basic shoe, or something that looks just like a spaceship that I made. [Laughs]

Knit uppers on shoes have been a thing for a handful of years now, but we haven’t really seen something exactly like what you created here, where it’s fully knit all the way around. Was there a lot of trial and error involved in perfecting the look that you wanted to create here? 

Yeah, it was lots of iterations and multiple factories that had to exchange know-how and bring machines. We had to set up a factory line, so you get everybody in a room together and figure out how they can be produced at scale. At the beginning, we could only make a few pairs per day. It was very handmade. And it still is quite handmade, like the upper is attached to the sole by hand. So it has that artisanal feel even though it is hyper tech-y. But there was a lot of reiterations–where the seams were gonna be placed, getting the TPU form inside the knit to be the same color as the TPU yarn so when the yarn rubbed away you’re on the same color, getting the comfort right. There was a lot of iterations. I don’t even know how many. But a lot. And just weartesting to make sure that this idea could actually be.

This is the first installment of this Total Knit tech. Are you going to continue to push the limits of this and use it with other shapes and silhouettes in the future? 

Yeah, that’s the plan. Right now, we’re doing more uppers on the TK-360. Like, we have the 360 Plus that was in the last show that I’m wearing right now that has the Framis on top. We’re working on a high top, different things with top stitching and treatments, mixing more of that together as we become more proficient in making that shoe. But Total Knit as a concept is definitely something that I wanna explore in other silhouettes, maybe even potentially like women’s high heels. Other shapes are something I’d like to get to. It takes a second for everyone to get used to it at the beginning though, you know. These shoes are coming in the stores now and then it’s like another six months for the one I’m wearing to get in the store. So it takes time for things to exist in the world. Every product has multiple lives: when you’re making it, when it goes on the runway, when you shoot it, when it goes out into the world and people start wearing it in their regular life. You can only have so much control over what you think you want something to become. But once it goes out into the world, there’s a whole nother layer that leaves the control of the creator and it becomes something completely new. It takes time for that to reveal itself. 

Like you said, you don’t necessarily have the control of that narrative once it’s out at retail, but in your head, do you have a vision of what you want to see it become when it gets into customer’s hands?

I don’t have any expectations or anything. One thing that I feel really grateful for is that I’m in a position to do something that looks really unique or extreme. There’s a level of uncomfort to it. You’re like, ‘This is something that is familiar cause I know knit, but it’s also fragile at the same time. It is a really strange form. I don’t know how comfortable I’m gonna feel wearing it.’ But to have the community give it a chance to try to understand it and sit with it, that’s a blessing. It can at least, if anything, push the conversation forward. And then somebody will make something even more crazy.

A topic that a lot of people bring up is this continued bridging of the gap between streetwear and luxury fashion. And I feel like a lot of people consider you along with people like Virgil, Jerry Lorenzo, etcetera, as one of those people that has sort of helped marry those worlds. How do you personally feel about how that’s evolved and where it’s at right now?

I don’t really know how to answer that question cause I don’t really separate the two in my head. I come from a streetwear background. That was like the first clothing and brands besides sportswear that I was aware of through skateboarding and rap music. So it was just part of my DNA, of silhouettes I like to create. Making those silhouettes in interesting materials and techniques, does that become luxury when you make it with the know-how or crazy hardware materiality that you can in Italy or France? It still retains that soul of a streetwear garment. I think the lines are just blurred and it’s just clothing. For me, I don’t even think about that separation or boundary. I just do things that I am excited by and that I love, that I wanna wear. 

Part of that background was Been Trill. As your careers moved on, that collective sort of branched out into its own ventures and it faded away. But the reason I bring it up is I feel like there’s a certain generation that has a connection to that era and nostalgia for it. Do you still have any sort of nostalgia for that time in the same way that the audience does? 

Even prior to Been Trill, I was an art director for Stüssy. So Stüssy was really the first streetwear brand that I really worked closely with. And then there were other projects that maybe weren’t  design related after that. And then even now I do projects with Stüssy. In regards to Been Trill, it began with throwing parties and us just DJ’ing. And then we did collaboration T-shirts with our friends to wear at the DJ gigs. So Been Trill was never thought of as a clothing project. It kind of became a vehicle to produce clothing projects, but it was also really not precious. I can’t even think of many Been Trill pieces that I even designed. A lot of times it would be the collaborator or whatever. If we liked you and it was a fun thing to do, we would just do it. It wasn’t thought of as a business or something like that. It was really about community, being together with your friends, throwing fun parties, listening to the music that you wanted to hear, putting on young artists that we were excited by on the mixtapes. So, I think that time’s always gonna be really precious and special to me because it was a time where I was growing up. I was exploring the world with my friends and it was just a really free and fun time. I think that energy and time will always be an inspirational thing in my heart cause it was such great years. It was so awesome.

Regarding your current work with Givenchy, how do you see it growing throughout your tenure there? Is there anything you want to accomplish within that role still that maybe you haven’t thus far?

I think just continuing to wake up every day and being present, doing work that excites me, being open, learning, listening, and creating. Fashion isn’t like a game that you win or something. There’s no end to the whole thing. It’s just, at least for me, continually creating a world, getting better at it, and making more exciting product. In every aspect of creation, doing things that are more exciting and inspiring. That’s the motivating thing for me waking up every day and I feel really fortunate and blessed that I do something that I love and it doesn’t even feel like work cause I enjoy it so much. And it’s the only thing I’ve ever done really. I guess, for me, the goal is to just continue as long as possible.

When you look at the landscape of fashion right now, what gets you excited?

I love all of the younger generation of streetwear designers, like Du from Bstroy, kids that just have energy with what they’re making. My friend John Ross has his brand Seventh Heaven, which is really cool. Camille does work with Rocky, really great stuff. I think it’s really exciting Tremaine [Emory] being at Supreme. I’m really excited to see everything that he does over there. From a sportswear side, I always love what Nike does and the innovation. Every time I go to campus it’s just so exciting seeing what they do for athletes. And then something even like Pangaia, what they’re doing with sustainability. That’s so exciting, all of the innovation and material research that company’s doing at a mass level I think is a really exciting frontier to explore. And then making those materials available to other designers and brands, it’s like the open source model. That’s bettering the world and educating, creating a new bar, a new standard for how fashion should be created, which I think is really exciting and great.