Matières Fécales Wants To Be Fashion’s Most Extreme Brand

It’s 9 PM on a warm Thursday night in Paris, and designers Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran, the duo behind the buzzy fashion brand Matières Fécales, are in their atelier finishing the spring 2027 collection. Wearing their signature graphic makeup—Dalton, an alien-meets-angel porcelain doll; and Bhaskaran, who dons dramatic black eyeliner matching his partner’s—the pair is surrounded by intricate saris and beaded gowns, alongside their signature streetwear-inflected garments, which include lots of black and red. Those fire-hued, feathered dresses; pink embroidered ballgowns with Indian design influences; and sculpted hourglass skirt suits were on full display weeks later at the Matières Fécales runway show on September 28, for which Rihanna sat front-row wearing a custom look from the brand next to Michèle Lamy and Rick Owens.

After just two years of showing at Paris Fashion Week, the label has become a highlight of the schedule: one of fashion’s most extreme brands, whose pieces are rooted in theatrical storytelling and raw authenticity. This season, the show was held outdoors in the historic La Place de la République, and featured 99 models of color walking the show.

“The theme for spring 2027 is ‘The Ninety-Nine Percent,’” Bhaskaran tells me back in the atelier in the days leading up to the event. He adds that the idea of freedom was a major influence for this collection. “Freedom can mean a lot of things, but for us, it’s about our living experience and our journey with freedom. There’s also the idea of: is freedom even possible?” he says. Last season’s shocking and powerful Matières Fécales show, which catapulted the brand to stardom over 10 years after they’d first launched it, was dubbed “The One Percent,” inspired by Dalton’s privileged upbringing and tropes of the ultra-wealthy. This season, it was Bhaskaran’s turn to tell his story; he pulled from the memories of his childhood, raised by a single mother in extreme poverty in Guyana (the designer is of Indian descent). He even walked in the show, alongside his mom Grace, his sister Shandeal, and his niece Vihannna.

If it all feels superpersonal, that’s because it is. Celebrities can feel the realness emanating from Matières Fécales and, most importantly, they are wearing the clothes. Gabbriette got married in three over-the-top, ethereal gowns by the brand; Sarah Paulson donned a tulle ballgown and a one-dollar-bill blindfold to signify being “blinded by money” at this year’s Met Gala; and one of Zendaya’s most exciting recent looks was a feathered masterpiece from the fall 2026 collection.

In addition to those starry fans, Matières Fécales has a community of its own—iconoclastic friends of the brand, including models, activists, performance artists, and other designers. After a decade of being told they’re the strange ones, Bhaskaran and Dalton are now building one of the most interesting worlds in fashion.

The pair met as students at LaSalle College in their hometown of Montreal in 2014. That same year, they launched a viral Instagram account with a following that adored their prosthetic, skin-like heels, eccentric outfits, and unusual makeup. Next, they created a fashion line they manufactured in their kitchen, then sold on Depop. After meeting Dover Street Market and Comme des Garçons president Adrian Joffe and pitching their plan for several themed collections, they’re now part of DSM’s brand development division. Dalton and Bhaskaran work in tandem—the latter does the sketches and the former chooses the fabrics, wear-tests the pieces, and strategizes on production.

They grew up on a steady diet of Lee Alexander McQueen runways, and it shows. But their personal beginnings are what ultimately end up sparking the ideas for each of their wild collections.

“One of my key memories is when I started drawing, when I was probably 11 years old,” Bhaskaran says, adding that this became a cornerstone theme for spring 2027. “I was living in the same room with my mom and my sister, and we were sharing one mattress. I would draw on the mattress in one corner. My mom would be getting ready to go clean houses. My sister, who was 14, was going to work at KFC after high school. I was observing all of that, but I was in my own world.” Now, he says, “This is what a lot of people are going through. So this collection is an homage to the strength of the 99 percent, and the soul of a lot of people who don’t have access to fashion, or beauty, or luxury. It’s a way of taking all of those struggles that I went through, that so many people go through.”

Dalton says the brand’s core is about “practicing fearlessness. Every day, we walk around the streets, looking the way we do,” she adds. “We put ourselves out to the whole world. We’re not living in a bubble.” Their bold approach has led to a collaboration with Christian Lacroix on sky-high heels that Rihanna even wore for the show. “My mom has been complaining about my high heels since the day I was born,” Dalton adds with a laugh.

So what about the name, Matières Fécales, which translates to “fecal matter” in English? “I think the brand name acted, in some cases, as something that turned a lot of people off—and a lot of people love it,” Dalton says. “The duality of having this momentum just proves that if you love something, it doesn’t matter what it’s called, or what it looks like.”

“If we wanted to be artists, we would make art,” Bhaskaran notes. “What we love about fashion is that there’s an ability to have wearable art.”