Givenchy has a brand-new look. Recently installed creative director Mr Matthew Williams is taking the French fashion house in a decidedly edgier direction, incorporating the brand’s history of tasteful tailoring, yet updating it for 2021 with a debut collection of industrial-inspired clothing that lands on MR PORTER today.

Mr Williams has already done much to build a new-wave hype for the reborn brand, recruiting people such as Playboi Carti, Ms Kendall Jenner and Ms Bella Hadid to front his first campaign. The 35-year-old is not what you’d call a “traditional” fashion designer and certainly didn’t get here by any conventional route. Rejected from Parsons School of Design in New York, he got his break working for Mr Kanye West in 2007, when the rapper asked him to design a jacket for a performance with Daft Punk.

After joining Mr West’s creative team, Mr Williams went on to become a founding member of Been Trill, a DJ/art/streetwear collective, with Messrs Virgil Abloh, Heron Preston and Justin Saunders, all now influential menswear luminaries. He later founded his own brand, 1017 ALYX 9SM, which has become known for its sleek, sci-fi-esque suiting.

Mr Williams brings to Givenchy his distinctive knack for blending polished, expensive-looking tailoring with industrial influences, such as patent leather and harnesses – the metal hardware details he’s become known for. See, for instance, the rigorously cut black blazer that fastens with a padlock rather than buttons. Or the logo T-shirts, which are pinned at the front and distorted with metal rings. More signature hardware is evident throughout the collection’s accessories, appearing as statement buckles on belts and tote bags and more padlocks on keyrings.

These are clothes to have fun in. If the loud, leopard-print shirts don’t turn your head, wait until you see the metallic-gold trousers. Party-ready and with a hint of the modern rock star, this is high-octane stuff designed to blast the mundanity of the past year away and give us a chance to rev up our wardrobes again.