McQueen’s Mycelium: Sarah Burton Looks to A Multi-Cellular Muse For Her Latest Alexander McQueen Show
A sartorial reimagining of nature’s tiniest wonders indeed…
The smell of rich, damp earth was the first thing that hit the senses upon stepping into the cavernous warehouse space in Brooklyn for the latest Alexander McQueen runway show. Once inside, the setting sun, at the peak of its golden hour perfection, highlighted a circuitous runway framed by giant knolls of mulch made from fallen trees as a soundtrack of chirping birds welcomed guests. This was the setting that designer Sarah Burton wanted for her autumn/winter 2022 collection. And it proved to be fertile ground for an offering that got its starting point in the world of mycelium.
In fact, mycelium was the name Sarah gave the collection, a moniker stand-in for a larger message that the designer wanted to convey about how interconnected the world truly is. Mycelium is the root-like structure of mushrooms that interlinks them below the surface. The tree mulch setting was also a nod to this idea. “What I really love is the way that trees talk to each other, and sort of heal each other, as in a creative community that all work together,” Sarah told Bazaar backstage after the show.
On the runway, the fungi effect popped up in some expected ways, for example as a motif on deconstructed sweaters. But there were more subtle, yet no less striking nods as well. A silver beaded ruffled one-shouldered dress worn by supermodel Kaia Gerber, was a sartorial reimagining of an actual mushroom that has been found by Sarah and her team growning on one of the upper floors of the McQueen headquarters in London.
The root mycelium structure was alluded to in the colourful fringing on some of the gowns in the show and suits, cut in spore-printed motifs and vivid colours, were also on message. “The actual colours came from a [mood] board of mushrooms that I had, because the thing is, they’re healing, but they’re toxic as well. There’s a danger to them,” she explains. It’s a dichotomy that felt very much in keeping with the McQueen ethos.
But the idea of connectivity went even deeper for the designer. The colourful abstract pattern on one deftly tailored suit was a nod to the iconic finale of Shalom Harlow being spray-painted by a robot in the N° 13 collection from 1999. While the black lacquered lace in the show looked like a descendent of the fabric used by Alexander McQueen in his Dante collection, which also happened to be the first show he ever did in New York, back in 1996.
The founder also presented his Eye collection in New York in 1999, but that marked the last time the house showed in The Big Apple. So why, after 23 years, did Sarah want to return? “It’s an exciting city. It’s a creative city. It’s a speedy city. There is a pace to it and an energy to it,” says the designer, adding, “It feels part of our creative community”.
It is understandable that after so much isolation over the past two years, taking the show on the road and bringing the McQueen collection to the United States feels like a way for the brand to reconnect with the wider world. Thus adding yet another layer of connectivity, the origin story of this collection.
With such a mushroom-centric collection, it was surprising to learn from Sarah that the dramatic leather jackets and skirts in the show had not been made with state-of-the-art mushroom leather. The designer understood why the audience might be expecting that but for her, it was important to have a fuller grasp of the capabilities of the high-tech fabric before committing to it. “We actually are trialling it, the mycelium leather, but I didn’t want to do it until we had enough product to talk about it as a [full] story,” she explains.
With its subtle links to the past and the common thread of its mushroom mycelium starting point being so beautifully woven into the entire line-up, this show felt well-grounded in its connective tissue storytelling; touching on the codes of the house while also making new ones. It even found a way to link itself to the future of fashion seeing as 85 per cent of the fabrics were upcycled and the set itself will be recycled. Now that is the sort of luxury offering that fashion lovers will find they want to be connected to.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s April 2022 issue.