At the end of the Alexander McQueen show, the audience gave a standing ovation when Naomi Campbell strutted out in a silver beaded dress with a heart-shaped breastplate and fringed loops hanging down the skirt. , designer Sarah Burton came out to take a bow. Everyone knew it would be her last piece for the brand.
After taking over in 2010 following the suicide of its founder and leader, she was about to leave the home she had created for herself. She heard David Bowie’s “Heroes” playing from the speakers. It was the perfect song to go out with. Because for the past 13 years, Ms. Burton has been as close to a hero as the fashion world has.
She ensured that the McQueen name was more than just a legacy, it lived on. She took it out of tragedy and trauma and very gently guided it into the light. She had no idea what she was going to get when she went to a McQueen show, but she put her heart and soul into it, with a brand built on tension, drama, and clothing that moves on the knife edge of danger. Ta.
It’s hard to remember now, when celebrities like Cate Blanchett, Elle Fanning, and Jon Batiste in the audience competed to wear McQueen at red carpet events, but this is what the brand was all about. was far from the foreseen conclusion. Survive as its name suggests. At the time, the industry widely proclaimed that there was no one, no one, no one. — could follow in Lee Alexander McQueen’s footsteps (or more precisely, the hoof steps of an armadillo-shod platform). No one else will suit him with the outrageous combination of technical skill and free imagination he brings to the job, and even Kering (then Gucci Group), who announced in 2000 that it had acquired the brand. , it was rude to try that. .
This move by the unknown Ms. Burton (who, however, had worked with Mr. McQueen for 12 years) first united the company and then demonstrated the courage and conviction that it was possible to do as a designer. It was an action. To inherit an aesthetic, not to reject it or faithfully imitate it, but to understand it and make it your own. Not just in form and pattern, but also in spirit.
Mr. Burton embraced Mr. McQueen’s weaponized tailoring and drama, but gave the brand an elegance and generosity that hadn’t existed before. This was such a big change that Burton was appointed creative director just a year after he created Kate Middleton’s wedding dress. As a result, the McQueen name became not only the height of fashion, but also a symbol of modern Britain.
The reason for this was evident in Mr. Burton’s last show. The show was dedicated to what she called “the passion, talent and loyalty of Lee Alexander McQueen, who has always wanted to empower women, and my team.” It was neither an elegy nor a greatest hits tour, but a defiant and triumphant celebration of female physicality and strength of all kinds.
She ripped open her suit jacket to reveal different parts of her anatomy, knitted a blood-red molded black minidress down her spine, and painted crimson threads across her coat. English Tudor Her roses bloomed on bias-cut slips, and O’Keeffe-esque flowers formed the petals of the dress. Aran knits included entire gardens, with frayed tulle tops dripping strips of silver bullion over white woolen bumsters.
This was one of the few shows this week that featured models of all sizes and different age groups on the catwalk: petite, medium, plus size, pregnant. Burton has always seen women as they are: warriors, mothers, storytellers, myths. And he dressed them for it.
The designer hasn’t said what she’ll do next or why she and Kering decided to part ways. Perhaps the show’s backdrop, a monumental textile work by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanović, was an inspiration. She heroized the country’s textile arts, and Burton described him as “a rebellious and powerfully creative artist who refused to compromise his vision in any way.” Whatever the reason, Burton is weaving himself into the fabric of this era.
As it happens, this week’s farewell show wasn’t Ms. Burton’s only one. Gabriella Hearst also said goodbye to Chloé after three years, but her influence on the brand was relatively minor, with her last collection for the brand featuring ruffled white knits, blooming sleeves and swaths of leather. A slip of fishnet stockings was an ode to swirling flowers. And ceramic daisies.
Although they were functionally delicate, they were overshadowed by the energetic appearance of the musicians from Brazil’s Mangueira Samba School who appeared to play Ms. Hearst in the finale, happily jumping up and down the runway and watching her models. They appeared. (The designer didn’t seem too bothered by the withdrawal.)
Although Ms. Hearst’s attire was never particularly noteworthy, in some respects she marked a major change for Chloe, giving her the status of a B Corporation, which should be formally held accountable for environmental and social standards. It spurred change. During her tenure, Chloe The first major luxury brand to receive this recognition.sustainability seems to have all but disappeared from the fashion conversation this season.
“There’s no going back!” exclaimed Ms. Hearst during the preview, noting that she had always considered herself just “one link in the chain” of the Chloé designer.
Still, the departures of Mr. Hearst and Ms. Burton mean there will be two fewer female designers at major houses, at least until a replacement is named, and perhaps beyond that, at the industry’s second-largest fashion group. Kering will no longer have a female designer.
That, to me, is fraught with the danger of backsliding.