The name might make you do a double take, but the clothes are hard to forget. Matières Fécales, which translates to "Fecal Matter", has been quietly building a reputation for making some of fashion's strangest, most theatrical and surprisingly beautiful clothes. And lately, the Montreal-founded label has been turning up everywhere, from major red carpets to music stages and fashion campaigns.

One of its biggest recent moments came when Zendaya stepped onto the red carpet for the New York premiere of ‘Odyssey’. Dressed in an ethereal strapless gown complete with dramatic white feathered wings, she looked almost otherworldly.

When her stylist Law Roach was asked who designed the look, his answer was considerably less dreamy: "Fecal Matter."

Behind the provocative name are designers Steven Raj Bhaskaran and Hannah Rose Dalton, who started the label more than a decade ago while studying at Collège LaSalle Montréal. What began with selling their creations on Depop eventually took them to Paris Fashion Week, celebrity wardrobes and some of fashion's most talked-about events.

Also Read: Zendaya keeps her method dressing streak alive with a metamorphosis-inspired premiere look 

And if the name is deliberately confrontational, so is the design philosophy.

Bhaskaran and Dalton have always been interested in questioning what society considers beautiful. Their own appearances have become part of that conversation, with shaved heads, bleached brows, striking white makeup and an almost alien-like aesthetic. Their designs have followed the same path, mixing beauty with distortion, softness with decay and familiar silhouettes with details that can feel slightly unsettling.

The name itself came from their frustration with the fashion industry. Instead of using the more vulgar term they initially had in mind, the designers chose its scientific equivalent and translated it into French. The result sounded, as Dalton has previously explained, considerably more glamorous.

There was also a point behind the shock value. The designers have spoken about wanting to draw attention to the wasteful side of fashion, making the name a kind of commentary on the industry itself.

Yet somehow, the label's clothes have become remarkably glamorous.

Celebrity stylists and performers have helped push Matières Fécales into the spotlight. Lady Gaga and Madonna were among the early supporters, with Madonna even bringing the designers on board as DJs during her 2023 tour.

The duo has also created custom stage looks for Gaga, including her appearance at Coachella.

At this year's Grammys, Gaga wore one of their dramatic black feathered gowns, creating a darker counterpart to Zendaya's angelic white look.

Also Read: Has Kriti Sanon already found her bridal wardrobe in Gaurav Gupta's 'Light Song' collection? 

Their clothes have also found their way into the wardrobes of Kylie Jenner, Sarah Paulson and Demi Moore.

For Sarah Paulson's Met Gala appearance, the designers' "The One Percent" collection provided a particularly striking look: a huge distressed grey ball gown paired with a mask made from dollar bills. It was a fitting choice for a collection that explored the influence of wealth and power.

Demi Moore wore another piece from the same collection at the Cannes Film Festival, where she served as a jury member. Her stylist Brad Goreski chose a frayed, oversized Barbie-pink gown with a distressed bow, a significant departure from the more structured silhouettes Moore usually wears.

According to Goreski, that change was part of the appeal. After two decades of working with Moore, he said she rarely opts for an exaggerated full-skirted "cupcake" shape. But the designers' storytelling convinced her to try something completely different.

That ability to make people step outside their usual style may be one of Matières Fécales' biggest strengths.

Fashion writer Kristen Bateman, who has attended all three of the label's Paris Fashion Week shows, believes its appeal comes partly from how different it feels from the major fashion houses. At a time when some luxury collections can begin to look increasingly similar, Matières Fécales has created a visual language that is difficult to confuse with anyone else's.

The label's rise also received an important boost in 2024, when Dover Street Market began supporting the designers. The relationship began after Bhaskaran and Dalton met Dover Street Market president Adrian Joffe backstage at a Madonna show. The retailer has since helped the young label with areas including production, distribution and sales.

That support has helped turn Matières Fécales from an underground fashion curiosity into a label with a much larger audience.

The designers were added to the official Paris Fashion Week calendar last year, where they presented "The Other", a collection centred on identity and freedom of expression. It included their distinctive curved heels reworked in collaboration with Christian Louboutin.

Then came "The One Percent" in March, another collection built around a strong idea rather than simply a series of clothes. Models walked out wearing eye masks made from dollar bills and white opera gloves splashed with red paint. The collection explored the way power and wealth affect people, giving the clothes a theatrical quality that felt closer to performance art than a conventional runway show.

That sense of world-building is what keeps people coming back.

Rather than designing pieces simply because they might look good on a red carpet, Bhaskaran and Dalton create an entire universe around their clothes. Their collections have characters, references and stories, while the garments themselves often look as though they have been pulled from a strange dream.

The label's growing reach isn't limited to fashion week and award ceremonies either.

Kylie Jenner recently wore one of its blush-pink satin blazers, complete with exaggerated shoulders, in a Dunkin' advertisement. The appearance introduced the label to viewers who may never have come across it before, and naturally, the unusual name generated its share of online reactions.

The designers also created a distressed Victorian-inspired wedding dress for model Gabbriette Bechtel's wedding to musician Matty Healy, marking another first for the label.

For a brand that began with two students experimenting with fashion in Montreal, the journey has been remarkably fast.

And perhaps the most interesting part is that Matières Fécales hasn't become more conventional as its audience has grown. If anything, the opposite has happened.

The clothes are still strange. Still theatrical. Still willing to make people uncomfortable. But somewhere between the bizarre silhouettes, exaggerated proportions and deliberately imperfect details is a clear point of view.

As fashion commentator Hanan Besovic put it, there is a reason people are rooting for the designers: they're young, they're building something of their own and, most importantly, they have something to say.

With the duo's next Paris Fashion Week show scheduled for September, the question isn't whether Matières Fécales will make people look twice. It is what they'll come up with next.