Seán McGirr continues his hot streak at McQueen. Now five seasons into his tenure, the creative director seems intent on creating intimacy, emulated not only through the collection, but through the show space too: a low-lit, pale-carpeted maze of flesh-pink, sheer curtains designed by Tom Scutt. Intimate indeed, the audience was split into smaller viewing circles — at the centre an empty podium ensconced in its own veil of drapes.
As a disquieting score by A.G. Cook played, models began weaving through the three concentric rings of spectators, eventually assembling at the centre, populating the podium we’d all been eyeing.
This season, McGirr explored the tropes of the psychological battle between performance and paranoia; interiority and exteriority, as boundaries defining where a garment or print might belong ceased to exist. Alongside Todd Haynes’s 1995 film, Safe, which was noted as a starting point for the Fall collection, it was also a fountain of Hitchcockian references — fitting for a house that has long drawn its lifeblood from cinematic unease.
The show opened with clear McQueen signatures: impeccably tailored suiting rooted in Savile Row tradition, and single-hook jackets with tall, mod-style boots. Rituals that have long been domesticated were extracted from their usual settings: lace that would typically be reserved for the boudoir was reimagined across evening wear, caught between layers of organza, and peacoats were worn as ultra short dresses. Floral wallpaper prints were plastered across jackets and dresses, while hand embroidered flowers appeared across 1960s silhouettes.
Icy grey mikado silk manifested as tailored jackets and billowing mini dresses, and McQueen’s known fondness for chainmail appeared as sweaters made from thousands of metal rings. Jacquard florals and trompe l’oeil plumage were among the many odes to the original codes of the brand, keeping the flame of McQueen’s signature styles ever burning.
Models wore muted, peach-toned wigs, or embellished masks, or had unnervingly perfect side parts and soft falling waves — moving the show into an uncanny valley territory and heightening the feeling of shielding oneself from that unwavering public gaze.
After closing with a dramatic bridal look laden with florals, the finale approached and those fleshy coloured curtains were lifted. The models were gathered in the middle of the room — and combined with the final look, it was a suitably theatrical closing to a McQueen show.
