Funny how time slips away. Four months ago it seemed unthinkable, on an emotional level, that Alexander McQueen's label would survive his death. Then logic prevailed, with Sarah Burton, McQueen's second in command and the person who knew as well as anyone how he thought and worked, appointed as creative director. On the evidence of this Spring menswear collection, the transition could involve a reasonably seamless and subtle reworking of the house aesthetic.
Despite the show's title, Pomp and Circumstance, it was as low-key as its mode of presentation. Maybe there was some pomp in the historicism of suppressed waists and high collars with a Regency flair, or in the cutaway jackets and morning suit striped pants. And the house's signature theatricality was certainly evident in a red and gold brocade coat, or the opium-den-worthy florid deconstructed redingote in vermilion velvet, worn with baggy trousers in an aboriginal silk print. But there was more humble circumstance in a fisherman's sweater, in an unstructured jacket in cashmere reconfigured to look like rough linen, and in an outrider's jacket in washed black leather that ended in an unhemmed skin. The truest reflection of the McQueen heritage was the sense of a story being told: Burton's interplay between aristo and working-class rough was the latest chapter in a book started nearly two decades ago.
