“Givenchy means everything to me.”

“Culture, elegance, street.”

“Everyone started doing chains, everyone started doing belts and locks. [Matthew Williams] really influences my day-to-day.”

Outside Givenchy’s Paris Fashion Week presentation, superfans quickly reached consensus: Fall 2023 was Matthew Williams’s best menswear season yet. The designer was on the same page: “It’s one of my favorite collections that I’ve done,” he said post-show, as attendees and models spilled onto the cobblestone out front of the École Militaire.

The collection was an absolute feat of tailoring: unhemmed, un-tucked suits that elongate the frame of the wearer; intricate layering—both baggy and slim, but never unkempt; hand-plumed hoodies; stitched denim; a careful symmetry between patterned and all-black material. Williams strikes a balance between classic French fashion, and the sort of edginess and provocation that makes design aficionados—young and old, from every corner—tick. Document caught up with a few raving crowd-goers, picking their brains on what makes Givenchy stand apart from the throng.