I first met Matthew Thomson in his Mattt Gertrude Street studio and store, where two ladies busied themselves at sewing machines making bags in the shop section and Matt toiled away out the back trying to meet an order. It’s many artists’ dream to have a store on Gertrude Street’s groovy strip, so I was a little surprised to hear Matt had shut up shop there.

It was a very conscious decision to scale back. “I certainly really love the fact that I did it [had the shop]. I don’t think that was the wrong decision. I think that was awesome and something I did want to do, but at the moment I am more interested in designing stuff for people. For sustainability, which I’m quite interested in, making a whole lot less stuff and making stuff that’s more special, for certain individuals and their needs, it makes it even more meaningful. If you make one tenth less products, that’s, just by its very nature, a more sustainable activity, because you’re not using as many resources. It never ends you’re just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and that’s not what I want to do.” In Matt’s mind (and ours, clearly) smaller is more lustful. It was on a holiday overseas, with some distance from the business, that he had time to reassess. “Although the shop was good, it was like running to stay in one place. I was more managing staff and managing stuff, rather than actually making stuff or designing stuff and wasn’t able to do what I started out to do,” he says.

Matt’s pared back the business, abandoned wholesale, and relocated to a new studio in Melbourne’s Nicholson Building. As we speak he’s unpacking and setting up in the spacious five-room studio, and mulling over ways for designers to retail their products whilst having more control over the customer’s experience. Whilst having stockists is great, often communication of the designers’ intention, and the functionality of products can be lost in the supply chain.

Mattt bags will now be available online, at markets and at the studio, allowing for Matt himself to interact with customers, assess their needs and make custom bags. He says he will be “very much focussing on doing stuff for individuals. Stuff that’s more personalised for people rather than being more like a commodity. It’s going to be more one-off panels and those sort of things, so if you want that bag you have to get it because it’s not going to be hanging around very long. Having things more special and more unique rather than having them everywhere.”

“I’m just trying to simplify everything and see how far I can take that, which has been fun.” Sounds like a great challenge to us. That said, before things get simpler, Matt is participating in design made trade this week, doing two markets this weekend (Rose Street on Saturday and the Arts Centre on Sunday), and setting up the studio to open late next week.