This evening, Sarah Burton presented Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2017 collection at L’Orangerie in the Jardin du Luxembourg to assembled guests including Naomi Campbell and Salma Hayek. A parade of punkish goddesses emerged in looks inspired by Great Britain’s Shetland Islands—with plenty of the touches that have become Burton’s signatures: the lush embroideries, the bustiers, and an occasional, well-placed splash of the hard-edged.
While you’re waiting for Sarah Mower’s review, here are nine things to know about Alexander McQueen Spring 2017.
1. Guests’ invites bore an etching custom created by printmaking atelier RLD Paris, depicting a wild-haired woman, her tresses tangled with flowers.
2. Models made their way across mounds of custom silk rugs, bearing motifs of the Shetland Islands and designed by graphic design powerhouse M/M Paris.
3. Fresh-faced models, their hair damp and simply parted, looked as though they could have just come from a tromp across the moors.
4. The show opened with a pair of gossamer-light cream gowns in crocheted lace—topped with a studded leather bra top and a cropped, military-inflected leather jacket, respectively.
5. Among the other punky touches Burton proposed? Rakish gray tartan suiting and what’s destined to become one of the season’s must-have shoes: this knee-high, lavishly studded combat boot.
6. Flora and fauna embroidery has become something of a McQueen calling card lately, as seen on a gorgeous, pieced-together corset worn by Vittoria Cerretti.
7. On the far opposite end of the spectrum from Burton’s boned bustiers and corsetry—but equally covetable—was a series of patchworked knit pieces that had a coolly grunge appeal to them.
8. The designer married two of her recent runway fixations—the biker jacket and the bustier—in an embroidered Perfecto-style number.
9. The race is on to see which starlet gets first crack at the show’s closing look: a lavish, tulle-laden gown.
