How the iconic 1017 Alyx 9sm buckle came about The detail that is synonymous with Matthew Williams' brand comes from an intuition at an amusement park

 When last weekend Elon Musk stepped on the Saturday Night Live stage for his monologue, he was wearing a black suit consisting of tailored trousers and a U-lock jacket with side closure by Givenchy, which on one hand made him look like one of Star Trek characters, while on the other hand he could have easily just stepped off a Parisian catwalk. That very particular closure, born from the mix of the design of the padlocks that decorate the Pont des Arts in Paris with the classic Givenchy logo, was one of the most striking innovations introduced by the new creative director of the Maison Matthew Williams, who around closures, details often deemed as secondary and far from common buckles has built an entire career. 

Valentino has its red, Chanel the tweed suits - despite the heated controversy with Saint Laurent -, Bottega Veneta the woven leather, 1017 Alyx 9sm has buckles. It might seem simplistic to say so, but the brand founded in 2015 by Matthew Williams together with his then-wife Jennifer Murray and Luca Benini of Slam Jam, has built around this apparently secondary detail very strong and identifying imagery. Unlike the great stories that have written the history of fashion, which speak of fortuitous intuitions in the middle of the night or unexpected and therefore revolutionary discoveries, the genesis of this accessory, especially when applied to the now-famous Rollercoaster Belt, has nothing particularly glamorous or brilliant, but it's the result of a mindset that looks to the substance, to a type of fashion that questions how its components are built. 

In that elevated streetwear that Williams soon turned into functional luxury, the founder of Alyx and creative director of Givenchy has built a personal and unique language, for this reason extremely successful, unmistakable not only in for its look but also in the sound of that closure, in a fleeting moment when fashion and function come together.