In today's video I talk about and review Sean McGirr's debut fall winter 2024 collection as creative director of Alexander McQueen.
The changing of the guard at McQueen began with a woman wrapped in shiny black laminated jersey, with one arm pinioned across her breast, the other tucked inside the skirt. Seán McGirr said he’d been inspired by looking at The Birds, Lee McQueen’s spring ’95 collection, in which he’d encased a model in transparent pallet tape. “This sort of idea of a compressed silhouette actually anchors the whole collection,” the 35-year-old newbie in the hot seat was saying before the show. “So I was trying to kind of bring that forward, bring that message forward, bring those silhouettes and see what I could do with real clothes.”
The venue-a disused railway shed on the outskirts of Paris-echoed the rawness of the original venue, a derelict rave warehouse in London’s Kings Cross where McQueen had shown The Birds. McGirr has big shoes to fill, though he wasn’t showing any signs of nerves. His instinct for interpreting the brand, he said, is that “it should have sort of playful aggression to it, and should be kind of uplifting, because I want to bring a kind of lightness to McQueen.”
McGirr said he’s not had a chance to delve into the archives yet (he only started on Dec 1st last year), but had taken his initial cues from looking at runway photos, mixed with paparazzi pictures of Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse. What he took from them, to set his tone, was more the vibe than literal references. “It’s a man or woman who are hedonistic characters,” he said. “In a way it was like, these sort of people who modeled for McQueen in the ’90s, they kind of looked like people on the fringes. Outsiders. I’m really interested in that. So I guess it’s about singular characters with really strong personalities that I'd be very curious to meet on the street in London; this sort of rough glamour of the East End. This idea of sort of damaged opulence. And I also like this kind of bitchy intelligence that kind of comes through a little bit in the attitude of the boys and girls.”
As well as the idea of constriction-the binding McGirr lashed around skinny-legged jeans and as belts on sinister broad-shouldered men’s leather coats-there was what was about to break loose from it. “This animal within; some of it feels quite visceral,” he said. There were explosions of fur-like knitwear bursting from under tailoring and from the seams of jeans. Later there were animal prints, one in the form of what looked like several cut-up animal-spot sweaters, as if the model had draped himself in a DIY punk version of animal skins.
McGirr likes the idea of cutting up, customizing, repurposing found objects, smashing things up. One of his party dress embroideries was inspired by the shattered screen of a cell phone-his comment on social media. “It’s like this gesture of throwing your phone away,” he said. McGirr is not on Instagram; maybe a bellwether of a generation that’s rebelling in its own way.
The McQueen-isms, of course, were present in McGirr’s jet-beaded pants suits and substantial tailored coats. First impressions were that there was less of the McQueen red carpet spectacular in evidence, and more of the street and club wear that wasn’t there before McGirr arrived. That may or may not be his mission at the brand, but at any first outing of a creative director-especially those who’ve not worked in the public eye-it’s impossible to get an instant read on who they are, or who they might become with time.
McGirr did send a couple of clues, though. Both were about his Irish Dubliner identity. One was on the feet-hefty boots were encased in horse-hooves, one with a horse-tail switching from the heel. McGirr explained in an earlier interview that they were inspired by the horse-keeping Travelers of his home town. And one was in the air: as Enya’s “Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)” played at the finale, McGirr brought the house down with laughter and a spontaneous guest singing along. It broke the ice, and you saw that, maybe, this was a chink of light McGirr was promising. - VIA VOGUE RUNWAY, WRITTEN BY SARAH MOWER
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