Blue Sky Thinking and A Return To London For Alexander McQueen
Creative Director Sarah Burton breathes breathtaking beauty into Spring-Summer 2022
Stepping away from the traditional fashion week schedule, Alexander McQueen’s creative director Sarah Burton chose to present the brand’s Spring/Summer 2022 collection in London. It was a welcome return to the capital for a brand that, although London based, has previously showcased its new collections during Paris Fashion Week. Its first London show in five years, SS22 also marked a more philosophical return to post-pandemic life; underwritten by a thrilling sense of reawakening and renewal carved out in 36 breathtaking looks. An homage to ‘London Skies’, the collection was inspired by the views from the McQueen studio rooftop and demonstrated a tangible connection to, and affinity with, the very capital in which it was staged and in which the brand was born.
Set in a transparent dome structure conceived and designed by the architect Smiljan Radic, the creative force behind the brand’s naturalistic three-floor flagship boutique in Central London, and built on the roof of Tobacco Docks Yellow Park in Wapping, East London, the collection played out against a hauntingly beautiful soundscape by John Gosling featuring Massive Attack’s Safe From Harm and Daniel Avery’s Yesterday Faded. Panoramic city views broadened out into a vast sky, with dispersing clouds surrounding the dome and giving the sense of being cocooned in a bubble of air. London’s temperamental weather – oscillating between bright, sunny, and a threatening shade of grey – heightened the theatricality of a presentation that included an off-the-shoulder skeletal corset dress with cloud sleeves in sunshine yellow silk, and a dress with a deep V-neckline and gathered channel and ribbon detailing in engineered stormy sky cloud print poly taffeta.
“The artwork for the prints in this collection was shot from the rooftops of the studio where we are lucky enough to have the most incredible views of the city: from Saint Paul’s Cathedral to the London Eye,” Burton relayed in the show notes.
“We watched the weather and captured the formation and colouration of clouds from daybreak to nightfall and documented changing patterns, from clear blue skies to more turbulent ones. That led me to storm chasing. I love the idea of the McQueen woman being a storm chaser, of the qualities of storm chasing uniting the passionately individual community of characters wearing the clothes. They inhabit the same universe and the clothes are inspired by and made for them. Storm chasing is not only about the beauty of the views but also a sense of mystery and excitement – about embracing the fact that we can’t ever be sure of what might happen next. To give up control and be directly in touch with the unpredictable is to be part of nature, to see and feel it at its most intense – to be at one with a world that is bigger and more powerful than we are.”
That sense of unpredictability arising from a powerful force beyond our control resounded palpably with the experience of emerging from the pandemic. Sat in the dome under the changing skies that felt as if they might have been curated specifically for this moment, audiences were both surrounded by nature and part of it; aware of something greater and more dominant, yet simultaneously conscious of our own resilience and strength in coming out of lockdown and returning to life.
It was a characteristically McQueen offering but one that more finely balanced creativity with commerciality – a heady mix between hard and soft, masculine and feminine, fluidity and constraint. Tulle, mesh and Paris net punctuated the collection with ephemerality; a lighter-than-air quality brought back down to earth in a thudding black Chelsea boot with a thread sole; or oversized sculptural jewellery in heavy polished metal; or sleek tailoring imbued with irreverent zip detailing. The sharp identity of the house –structural, architectural, subversive – was blended harmoniously with more relaxed and wearable silhouettes; the scope and breadth of the collection reflected in a pleasingly diverse model casting.
This was McQueen for the multifaceted woman – punky but elegant – a combination which played out to striking effect in a single-breasted tailored tuxedo jacket with edgy slashed shoulders and waist, softened with satin lapels and a transparent black Paris net cloud back that billowed in the wafting breeze like a parachute.
There was poetry and drama in equal measure, weaving their way into crystal raindrop embroidery that manifested itself in an off-the-shoulder skeletal corset dress with gathered channel and ribbon detailing in black silk, mesh, and Paris net; or a double-breasted jacket in grey wool; or Arc Boots in black stretch mesh, mid-calf and thigh-high, with a skeletal wedge heel in polished silver metal. Elsewhere, a double-breasted tailored jacket and high-waisted peg trousers in neon pink wool saw Burton capture the quality of an electric sunset, whilst a more subdued daybreak came alive on a printed dress. A sweatshirt with cocoon shoulders and the same motif of crystal raindrop embroidery in white cotton jersey and an exploded skeletal skirt in white Paris net had all the lightness of a cloud. This was storm chasing and dream weaving at its very best – post-pandemic bravery and beauty captured under the London skies.
For more information, visit alexandermcqueen.com