September is a month when out-of-towners like to join in the New York Fashion Week festivities, eager locals happy to see the top names from Paris and Milan, and the chance to be a big fish in a small, or let’s say a new, pond make it an appealing opportunity. Last year, Alaia’s Pieter Mulier and Off-White’s Ib Kamara were both on the NYFW schedule.
The McQueen show on September 9 this year is something different: It’s not a runway presentation, but the debut of an off-Broadway production of House of McQueen, a retelling of the late designer Lee Alexander McQueen’s life, written for the stage by Darrah Cloud, directed by Sam Helfrich, and executive produced by Rick Lazes, with Gary James McQueen, the designer’s nephew, acting as creative director.
Since his death 15 years ago, McQueen’s genius has been showcased in the Costume Institute’s 2011 “Savage Beauty” exhibition and on screen in the 2018 documentary by Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui. His rise (and fall) was chronicled in a 2015 book by Dana Thomas, and his friend and benefactor Isabella Blow is to be the subject of an upcoming biopic The Queen of Fashion, with Andrea Riseborough starring in the title role. The House of McQueen production team is tapping into this ongoing fascination, betting that a new generation will find the late designer’s successes and struggles deeply resonant, along with his electrifying collections.
“We are trying to touch of issues that are relevant to a younger generation, issues like bullying, rejection, homophobia, depression, and even suicide,” says Lazes, “in the hope that this is a healing story.” Gary, who worked in McQueen’s men’s department for seven years, in addition to creating the brand’s lenticular show invitations which have since become collector’s items, believes it’s important to keep his uncle’s legacy alive. “A lot of the younger generation don’t really understand the person behind the brand,” he says.
House of McQueen has apparently been a decade in the making. Lazes, who’s best known for a film documentary about the boxer Lennox Lewis, admits the script has been through 26 drafts. If nailing the story has proved time consuming, even more will ride on the casting. As of today, a PR rep reports that it’s still in “the negotiation stage.” (According to IMDb, The Queen of Fashion doesn’t yet have its McQueen either.) Though the cast of House of McQueen has not yet been confirmed, there are stars behind the scenes. Production designer Jason Ardizzone-West, whose recent and upcoming credits include Idina Menzel’s Redwood and Lady Gaga’s 2025 Coachella staging, is responsible for the set design. “His work spans the kind of performance theater Lee was so great in,” adds Lazes.
Capturing the theatricality of McQueen’s shows and his mercurial personality are both essential for Lazes and co; conjuring the exacting brilliance of his clothes will be the responsibility of Kaye Voyce, who won an Obie Award presented for sustained excellence in costume design in 2016. Kering, the parent company of McQueen, which removed the founder’s first name from its advertising last year, not long after creative director Sean McGirr arrived, has not been involved in the project, though adjacent to the theater some archival pieces by the designer, on loan from anonymous donors, will be on display.
Less than a month after the New York premiere of House of McQueen, a sister project of sorts will open in Los Angeles. “Provocateur” is an immersive experience that, using technologies such as holography and projection mapping, will showcase key moments in McQueen’s life, “from his childhood bedroom to school at Central Saint Martins to his first job in a tailor shop,” says Lazes. Perhaps most tempting to this audience will be a virtual experience created in collaboration with DRESSX that will allow viewers to “try on” pieces from McQueen’s Horn of Plenty and No.9 collections. “As a creative, it’s really about wowing people and using technology that I feel Lee would have been excited by,” says Gary.
Those who knew him, or know his work well, are more likely to be curious about those 26 House of McQueen drafts. “Every time we do a reading, the actors get so emotional about it,” says Lazes, “and as we go into dress rehearsals it’s going to continue to evolve until we get to the final product. So, I think it’s a little over the top, yes, but Lee was over teh top, right? And it’s got to be great. If it’s not great, then we failed our mission.”
Previews for House of McQueen will begin in August. You can learn more about the immersive experience “Provocateur” here.
