Most young designers would kill to have Rihanna or Katy Perry wear their creations, but accessories wunderkind Hugo Matha fantasizes about having his It bags on the arm of Grace Kelly or Italian actress Silvana Mangano. “Because she’s always on fire,” says Matha on why Mangano would be an ideal client, as if he and the mid-century siren go way back.
This 23-year-old has uncommonly refined taste.
And this taste — seen in his luxurious, minimalist clutches — is now garnering the designer attention from the industry’s elite, including Carine Roitfeld.
The French editrix profiled Matha in her CR Fashion Book in June — five years after he started out.
In 2009, the designer entered the Lycée de la Mode in Cholet, then moved to Paris to attend art and design college École Duperré. Prior to graduation, he began an apprenticeship with Jean- Charles de Castelbajac before launching his namesake line of clutches this year.
$4,610, at colette.frCourtesy of the Designer
Matha’s pieces, which are handmade in the same Aveyron region of southern France where he grew up, have been on sale exclusively at trendy Parisian boutique Colette and on colette.fr since July.
“The Ubiquitous Pochettes,” as they’re called, are now on course to becoming just that — a musthave in the manner of Mansur Gavriel’s bucket tote. Only these aren’t your everyday punching-bag purses.
“My first concern is touch, the contact I have with the material,” Matha says of his precious cases, which come in Plexiglas and natural wood varieties furnished in fine leathers and industrial hardware.
“I wanted my Pochette to be more of a design object, or a jewel, rather than a proper handbag.” Beyond objets d’art, Matha sees his signature clutches as conversation starters.
“What’s interesting about the transparency of the Plexi is the exposure of its contents,” the designer says of his buzziest style. “It makes them public to the world — you’re no longer hidden, anonymous.”
Kleptos and hoarders need not apply.