Seán McGirr’s Debut for McQueen: Anticipation and Controversy

PARIS — Seán McGirr’s debut present at Alexander McQueen, one of many season’s most anticipated reveals, was inevitably one in every of its most controversial, as a result of Lee McQueen himself was the largest most of all: probably the most important designer of contemporary instances. Since his demise in 2010, his legacy has been nurtured and enhanced by his proper hand Sarah Burton who has made the model a byword for beautiful craft. As the primary “outsider” to be unleashed on that legacy, 35-year-old McGirr was confronted with a formidable process which may be thankless, initially no less than, if the fury of Saturday night time’s keyboard warriors is any gauge. He gave the impression to be anticipating as a lot in a preview final week when he quoted Lee’s personal response to criticism: “I’d relatively individuals hated what I do than not give a shit about it.” However, taking an extended, extra rational view, McGirr’s debut just about realised his personal ambition, which was to deliver McQueen again to its uncooked city roots, when Lee was nonetheless mastering his craft, earlier than all of the spectacles, when the extravagance was nonetheless purely emotional.

The situation — a chilly, damp, concrete husk of a constructing virtually an hour’s drive from the centre of Paris — definitely set the tone there. So did McGirr’s moodboard, with its photographs of McQueen’s earliest reveals “Banshee” and “The Birds.” A chunk from the latter — the well-known clingfilm gown — was the place to begin. “What was Lee attempting to say?” McGirr questioned. The twisted simplicity of the look, its “compression,” registered with him as one thing ineffably fashionable and new. So he opened the present together with his personal model, a fitted, draped tube of laminated jersey. Rubbish bag relatively than clingfilm.

McGirr was entranced by McQueen’s smash’n’seize iconoclasm, the way in which, for example, he ran soiled previous tires over the tailoring in “The Birds” to interrupt it down. His response to that was a T-shirt and a gown constructed spherical smashed windshields from a automotive dealership in Dagenham. One other gown of damaged crystal featured a busy impact created by the incorporation of shattered tail lights. There have been additionally skirts and shirts reduce from a black silk nylon that was supposed to duplicate tarpaulin. Improvising with industrial detritus, with discovered objects, felt “very London” to McGirr. For one look, he discovered an previous mesh toile from the 90s that had by no means been used and “trapped” it in layers of tulle.

McGirr by no means met McQueen, however he has an intuition for his ghosts. The urgency of the fashions jogged my memory a little bit of Laura DePalma, whose fierce, confrontational stroll in these early reveals was an unforgettable extension of Lee’s personal angle. There was an echo of an East Finish gangster or two within the males’s broad-shouldered leather-based coats, tightly sure (extra “compression” on the waist, with broad-brimmed hats. The attenuated tailoring additionally harked again to Lee’s personal obsession with razor-sharp precision, although McGirr developed his personal stacked (much more “compression”) shoulder.  The truth that the razor was somewhat on the blunt facet right here drove the naysayers right into a frenzy, however that’s the form of kink that McGirr ought to be capable of work out with time.

Talking of kink — integral to the McQueen aesthetic — McGirr introduced fetishistic prospers of his personal. There was a sling hyperlink in a necklace and a bag deal with. Biceps have been compressed by steel cuffs designed by Lee’s jeweller Shaun Leane, hoof-like footwear sprouted mini-horse’s tails. Closest to the core of peculiarity have been the appears to be like that closed the present. His father is a mechanic in Eire so there was lots of automotive speak round the home when McGirr was rising up.  He created three steel clothes in black, Aston Martin yellow and Lamborghini blue. Vehicles this time, as a substitute of automotive tires: McQueen through J.G. Ballard. Although there have been no skulls, no tartan, no courting of the clichés, the infamous bumster trousers obtained a revamp within the shapely type of a few “bum” clothes, which sculpted  the rear finish of Michelangelo’s David from shearling and tufted wool and mounted it on tulle and a rib-knit jumper.

Lee McQueen was one of many late, legendary Professor Louise Wilson’s star college students at Central Saint Martins. Sean McGirr was one in every of her college students within the final yr she taught at CSM. I considered her when he marched out his large cocoons of knitwear, ten tonnes of hoodie, performed down by pairing with gray flannel trackies or a denim skirt. They completely embodied “the tough drama” that McGirr craved.  It was a key ingredient of Lee’s personal beginnings, and if that implies a elementary compatibility, I’m completely happy. As a result of the connection really is there, if these keyboard warriors care to step again from their trend politicking and provides the brand new customary bearer an opportunity.

Alexander McQueen Autumn/Winter 2024