Let’s do a throwback here to the “It Girls,” scandalmonger magnets, and posh socialites alike of 2005, the cool girls, the ones whose illustrious careers, love lives and jetsetting lifestyles were all being scrutinized with a magnifying lense of terrifying proportions. Let’s shout out a few names here, Sienna Miller, Scarlett Johansson, Kate Moss, Mary-Kate Olsen, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton, Nicky Hilton to start.  These goddesses names were splashed on the pages of Vogue and every coarse tabloid alike as well as Perez Hilton 24/7. Their lives were dangerously and precipitously hanging in the balance as the public waited with bated breath for their next fall from honor because as Don Henley once famously sang, “People love it when you lose. They love dirty laundry.”

But these tabloid darlings were no hapless victims.  Each has a dating roster that read like the who’s in Hollywood, London or wherever posh, day jobs that people would donate vital organs for and closets that were beyond. And that was really my point all along, what they were wearing.  The height of boho-chic was late 2005 and these ladies were leading the pack. And there was one designer in particular who dressed these pre-Raphaelites like nobody’s business, namely Matthew Williamson.

You might of thought of him as the Second Coming of Christ because that is how big this guy was. I don’t know when his First Coming was, but this guy seemingly came out of nowhere. From silk chiffon print gowns to feather and bead embroidered dresses, his designs were out of this world and perhaps dusted with some extracurriculars. Seriously, he was that good.

Fortunately for all of us, he is still playing and expanding into previously untouched waters with the likes of bold and emblazoned, colorful and fanciful wallpaper, furniture and stationery which only he can deliver. The really great thing is mere mortals like us can have our hands on a piece of the Matthew Williamson dream. Whether these dreams are lucid or not is really an aside, it’s the hallucination that captures the fancy after all.

“Matthew Williamson has brought such joyful energy to the London fashion scene with his wonderful dragonflies, bright bubbly prints and unabashedly pretty clothes. He’s always been so clear about who he is – a designer who understands lifestyle as well as style, a follower in the footsteps of Celia Birtwell and Zandra Rhodes – and who his young, beautiful customer yearns to be. It’s been a real treat to watch his colourful career unfold.”

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