Fecal Matter — the fashion brand, that is — is suddenly everywhere

The brand name behind recent showstopping fashion moments isn’t quite as delicate as their romantic and otherworldly looks. When asked what an ethereal Zendaya was wearing for the “Odyssey” premiere in New York, her stylist Law Roach responded: “Fecal Matter.”

Zendaya’s angelic strapless gown with feathered white wings was the work of Matières Fécales — yes, in English, Fecal Matter — the Paris-based, high-end fashion house founded in Montreal over a decade ago that’s, seemingly suddenly, everywhere.

The design duo behind Matières Fécales, Steven Raj Bhaskaran and Hannah Rose Dalton, have aimed to subvert beauty with their own alien-like personal style, including dramatic white makeup, shaved heads and eyebrows, and skin boots made to look like realistic feet.

Bhaskaran and Dalton started the brand as students at Collège LaSalle Montréal, going from selling designs on the secondhand shopping platform Depop to showcasing collections at Paris Fashion Week. The designers have said the name reflects their view of the fashion industry, a perspective they initially summed up with a more vulgar word.

“There’s no other word for it, but how can we say it in a glamorous way? So we’re like, ‘fecal matter’ is the scientific word for it,” Dalton recalled to Vogue last year, adding they translated it into French, which “sounds way more glamorous.” Bhaskaran told the “Fashion Neurosis” podcast in March that the name was also intended to “challenge the wasteful side of fashion.”

A representative for Matières Fécales said the designers were not available for comment.

Despite the visceral name, tastemakers from Lady Gaga to Kylie Jenner are embracing their designs.

“There is this beautiful tension in their work between the finesse and the decaying, and the strong and the soft,” celebrity stylist Brad Goreski told The Associated Press.

And after years of building a cult following, they were taken under the wings of Dover Street Market in 2024, after first meeting its president, Adrian Joffe, backstage at a Madonna show. The global retail and concept stores offer emerging brands development support, from production and distribution to sales.

Kristen Bateman, a longtime fashion and culture writer who has attended all three of the designers’ Paris Fashion Week shows, said their rise is driven by the industry’s desire to see something new.

“If you’re looking at the high-fashion brands like Chanel and Dior, it all sort of starts to blend together,” she said. “And this feels like it’s in its own category. ... You can’t replicate it.”

Milan Tanedjikov, a Collège LaSalle Montréal design teacher, had a front-row seat to Dalton and Bhaskaran's rise and says they have finally found the balance between their art and fashion.

“They have created this, like, very interesting organism together,” he said.

The designers were invited onto the official calendar for Paris Fashion Week last year, debuting “The Other,” a collection they described as an ode to being fearless with identity. It featured a collaboration pairing their striking curved-heel design with Christian Louboutin’s signature red sole.

“At their very core, what drives them is absolute freedom of expression, and they want to push the boundaries of what is human,” Tanedjikov said.

In March, during Paris Fashion Week, the duo unveiled “The One Percent,” with models theatrically strutting with red paint on white opera gloves and wearing eye masks made of dollar bills. The collection showcased how “power affects us all,” they wrote on Instagram.

“What they were able to build in such a small amount of time is really insane in terms of world building and creating their world,” Augustin Maunier, Dover Street Market's director of brand development, said. “There’s real storytelling behind it.”

The show's theme was a stark contrast to the billionaires who had been sitting front row at other fashion week shows. At this year’s Met Gala, where Jeff Bezos was an honorary chair, actor Sarah Paulson wore a voluminous, gray, distressed ball gown from the collection, paired with the eye-covering money mask.

Goreski pulled from “The One Percent” for Demi Moore's wardrobe as a Cannes Film Festival jury member, telling the AP he wanted something new for Moore. Moore's frayed, full-volume, Barbie-pink ball gown with a distressed bow was a break from her usual structured looks. In 20 years of dressing Moore, Goreski said she hardly ever chooses a full-skirt “cupcake” shape, but that she fell for the designers’ artistic vision and storytelling.

“They’re designing clothes for themselves,” he said. “That’s authentically them, but they’re bringing it to like a whole other audience.”

Early supporters of the brand fittingly included boundary-breaking performers Madonna and Lady Gaga. Madonna even invited them to DJ on her tour in 2023 and they've designed custom looks for Gaga’s live performances, including Coachella. At this year's Grammys, Gaga wore a high-neck, feathered, black gown from the designers, a dark angel to Zendaya’s heavenly “Odyssey” look.

Now, though, their bold designs are going beyond red carpets. In a television ad for Dunkin’, Kylie Jenner wore a blush-pink, satin, structured blazer with over-the-top shoulder pads, a designer choice that generated some amusement online from those previously unfamiliar with the brand's name.

The designers created a distressed Victorian-style dress for model Gabbriette Bechtel's wedding to musician Matty Healy, a first for the brand. With their next Paris Fashion Week show set for September, fashion connoisseurs are eagerly waiting to see what’s next.

“We’re rooting for them because they’re younger designers who have something to say,” fashion commentator Hanan Besovic, who posts online as @Ideservecouture, said.

FILE - Sarah Paulson arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala on May 4, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Lady Gaga arrives at the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Lady Gaga arrives at the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Jury member Demi Moore appears at the premiere of the film "Paper Tiger" at the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, on May 16, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Zendaya appears at the premiere of "The Odyssey" in New York on July 14, 2026. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Zendaya attends the premiere of "The Odyssey" at AMC Lincoln Square on Tuesday, July 14, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

This combination of images show, from left, Zendaya at "The Odyssey" premiere in New York on July 14, 2026, Demi Moore at the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, on May 16, 2026, and Lady Gaga at the 68th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Three inmates were killed and more than 20 were injured in two separate prison clashes in Sri Lanka on Thursday and Friday, a government minister said.

Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told Parliament on Friday that one inmate died at Colombo Magazine Prison in the capital Colombo late Thursday when about 40 prisoners clashed after breaking out of their cells.

Two inmates died Friday morning at Kuruwita Prison in Kuruwita town about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the capital, Wijepala said.

Between the two incidents, 23 inmates were injured and admitted to hospitals, Wijepala said, adding that the violence was related to narcotics dealers and rival criminal gangs.

Prison officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The reports of the three deaths come a month after a clash in Negombo prison on July 6 left at least 26 people dead including seven prison officers.

Sri Lankan prisons are highly congested, with more than 39,000 inmates crowded into a system with a total capacity of just 10,000, according to a recent speech in Parliament by Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara.

“The number of prisoners in Sri Lanka today is four times the capacity,” said Senaka Perera, president of the Committee for Rights of Prisoners. “In fact they have been patient for so long.”

A large number of jail inmates are suspects awaiting trial for alleged narcotics-related offenses. Recent laws tightening bail conditions have resulted in prison overcrowding, Perera said.

The poor living conditions in the congested prisons keep inmates in constant agitation, which triggers incidents, Perera said.

His organization has made numerous pleas to authorities to categorize drug addicts as medical patients and establish separate rehabilitation facilities, Perera said.

Sri Lankan soldiers stand outside the Magazine Prison following an unrest in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026. (AP Photo)