McQueen
In 2024, the 36-year old Irish designer Seán McGirr was named the new creative director at Alexander McQueen. He succeeded Sarah Burton, who had surprised the industry when she announced she’d been stepping down from her post earlier that year. “Fashion should be able to conjure up feelings that are a bit twisted, but inspire you at the same time,” McGirr told Vogue shortly after getting the job. It’s the right spirit to lead the McQueen label into the future.
“Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims.” That was the name of Lee Alexander McQueen’s MA graduation collection, which took the fashion world by storm with its dark, sexy, Dickensian delights like a thorn-print silk frock coat with a three-point “origami” tail, and a bustle-backed tuxedo with a daggerlike, red-lined lapel—both with locks of human hair sewn into the lining. Alexander, as he called himself professionally, cultivated a reputation as a bad boy of fashion, which worked because of his extraordinary talent and polish. At 16, he ditched school and went to Savile Row, where he apprenticed with Anderson Sheppard and later worked at Gieves Hawkes. The fashion editor Isabella Blow fell immediately in love with his twisted vision of womanhood, purchased his entire collection and took the young designer under her wing.
His breakthrough collection came in 1995. Titled “Highland Rape,” it dealt with the abuse historically infringed on the Scottish people by the English, and saw models on the runway in ripped tartans and lace, smeared with fake blood. “The McQueen experience tapped into a whole new range of emotions and psychoses,” Vogue reported in 1999. Repeatedly accused of misogyny, McQueen insisted his only aim was to empower. “I want people to be afraid of the women I dress,” he said.
In 2000, McQueen inked a deal with Gucci Group (now Kering), which took a controlling stake in the business but allowed him to retain creative control. It unleashed an era of unparalleled creativity with each collection seemingly topping the one that preceded it while also standing completely on its own as a work of genius: the “Voss” collection from spring 2001 which turned the runway into a mental-hospital; a choreographed extravaganza based on the 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? for spring 2004; fall 2006’s “The Widows of Culloden” which closed with a floating hologram of Kate Moss; culminating in the spring 2010 collection “Plato’s Atlantis,” which was one of the first shows to be live-streamed and transcended the world of fashion thanks to Lady Gaga who wore one of the looks in her video for “Bad Romance” (the song also had its world premiere at the end of the McQueen show).
That collection would turn out to be McQueen’s last. A few months later, following the death of his beloved mother, the designer took his own life. A successor was found in Burton, who had been working alongside McQueen for 14 years, starting as an intern while she was still a student at Central Saint, before eventually becoming the head of womenswear. Soon thereafter, Burton was thrust upon an even bigger stage when it was revealed that she had designed the delicate lace dress worn by Catherine, Princess of Wales, when she married Prince William. Under her tenure, the label took on a more romantic edge, while never forgoing the hard-edge established by Lee.
