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Designer Matthew David Andrews Words Astrid Kearney

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In a world where garments are often reduced to trends or statements, "Venice in Essex" is something else entirely—an atmosphere, a memory, a reckoning. Designer Matthew David Andrews transforms his personal history into a hauntingly beautiful collection that draws on flood, fantasy, and queer resilience. What began in archive clippings and childhood recollections swelled into a full-blown performance at Central Saint Martins, where water became both material and metaphor.

What follows is a visual and emotional journey—one that began in the studio, culminated on the runway, and continues to ripple outward.

There are designers who stitch fabric. Then there are those, like Matthew David Andrews, who stitch feeling—into silk, into silence, into storm. His recent graduate collection Venice In Essex at Central Saint Martins didn’t just turn heads; it shifted atmospheres. We tracked the journey from look book images that blurred carnival and couture apocalypse to the live show, at CSM where the pieces were not just worn but performed.

Backstage, the transformation was total. Models emerged with sculptural wigs tossed by storm winds and makeup of shadow and light designed to cast shadows—not to hide, but to reveal. Faces became masks, then mirrors. Hats by Jenny Beattie didn’t simply top heads—they wept on cue, drizzling theatrically onto garments engineered to respond. Fabrics bled, bloomed, and transformed under the weight of water.

The studio pre shoot served as both workshop and set. It was here that Andrews and his team shot the look book, refining the narrative with each frame. Hair and makeup evolved through experimentation—from pink hair paper to more chaotic, storm-swept styles that better echoed the collection’s emotional weight. The process was collaborative, instinctive, and visual-first—focused on creating characters that felt real within the world of the clothes.

We spoke to Andrews about water as metaphor, the architecture of identity, and the runway—both real and imagined—that keeps calling.

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Is there a metaphor at play in using water to reveal truth or beauty? Do you view this technique purely as spectacle, or does it carry an underlying narrative about perception, identity, or transformation?

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Yes! The entire collection was inspired by a real-life flood that occurred in my hometown of Wickford in 1958. I wanted to use the flood as a metaphor for my struggles growing up queer in a community that didn’t accept me… drowning in the fear of revealing my identity.

As I began to dig through the community archive, many newspaper clippings had headings such as “The Venice of Essex” which I felt romanticised the flood - conjuring the whimsy and theatrical nature of the iconic Venetian Carnevale. With this in mind, I developed my narrative by referencing images of my towns annual carnival - imbedding this whimsical entry in the collections design by reimagining the flood on the day of the town carnival and how these “windswept characters” navigate such a devastating event.

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I started developing the water hats and dissolving textile quite a while ago! As it was quite challenging to achieve we had to create futile samples and prototypes in order to deliver the desired effect - but it was my amazing milliner Jenny Beattie and her husband David that were able to fully realise how the hats would successfully “rain” on the runway! Without them this magical moment wouldn’t have happened!

But you are right! The concept of the textile changing colour and decaying was to make it look as if the garments had become ‘water damaged’ and began to go mouldy. As the textile begins to activate with the water - it rips apart and reveals a striking colour underneath… revealing the real Matthew that I was suppressing.