The last time we spoke with designer Matthew Williams his cult-label Alyx had just been nominated as a finalist for LVMH’s 2016 Young Designer Prize. That was then. This is now– and Williams has backed up his cool with consistency, 4 collections worth, including resort. That’s not to say Alyx hasn’t evolved–it has, we’ll get to that–but Alyx very much knew who it was from its West Coast conception: The rebellious child who turned defiant subculture dress codes into a genre-bending identity all their own. Motocross inspired getups, rollercoaster belts, ass-less chaps, leather lots of leather and streetwear staples.

Between S/S 17 and F/W 17, the Alyx woman has been adding to her arsenal, “She added some suiting, some shearling coats and leather accessories,” says the New York-based Williams, nodding to Berlin’s underground this time, borrowing heavily from officer fatigues. “Alyx is a nuclear child,” Williams avows as to his brands role in the fashion conversation. Does that mean Alyx, named after his daughter, is Williams’ flesh and blood? Or maybe it means something more incendiary. Likely both, just like a child Alyx can be temperamental and it owns that feeling of immediacy, which can stir up a thrill. “Alyx is a personal monologue,” he says–one thing that hasn’t changed, even under pressure from an ever-quickening industry. He boils it down to: “Make better stuff, don’t make more stuff.”