This pre-fall Alexander McQueen collection was shown to editors in London on February 4, before Everything happened. Now that Everything has happened—and Anything else seems set to—how does Sarah Burton’s latest stand up as it begins to become available (a month or so late) on sale?
Pretty well, actually. These clothes might pre-date 2020’s double whammy—a flood of calamity followed by a tide of righteous reckoning—yet far from appearing antediluvian relics they are arguably more on point now than then. That’s because many of the considerations that Burton and her team embed in the material of their work—traceability, cultural identity, spirituality, sustainability, the appropriation of masculine tropes to articulate feminine power—have become less abstract and more tangible considerations in the unsparing light of Everything.
Working closely with British mills, McQueen developed lighter versions of conventionally heavier suiting fabrics—Donegal tweed, Prince of Wales, etc.—then cut and pasted them for contrast in garments whose contours echoed the fossil shapes of suiting reveres and darting. Worn north of swooping asymmetric hemlines punctuated by wide, deliberately languid ruffles the result was gender-transcendent power attire. These collar contrasts continued into leather dresses, playing burnt orange against caramel, a category that also encompassed all-caramel Boadicea wear—an unconscious reminder of when Britain was colonized and rose up (hopelessly) against the ‘civilizing’ sandal of Rome.
Lace dresses and tuxedo pantsuits similarly featured thoughtfully spliced samples of traditional suiting techniques. Alongside the layered-pattern knits or the contrasting of bright mineral colors against matte, iron-ore grays these added up to a rich seam of reference. Both the needle-punched pieces shivering with thousands of differently colored hand-applied ribbons, and the rib knit dresses—very contoured—inspired by schlumpy menswear cardigans reinforced the kaleidoscopic imaginative diversity of Burton’s source material. By excavating ancient themes and employing traditional techniques while refashioning the contrasting as the complementary, Burton is crafting clothes of a rare authenticity and resilience—warrior-wear of impeccable provenance.
