I moved to New York City at the end of August of 2011, missing The Met’s Savage Beauty exhibition by two weeks. To this day, missing this display is my biggest feeling of ROMO (regret of missing out). For those of you unfamiliar with Savage Beauty, it was The Met’s fashion collection of the year (you know the one that determines the theme of the infamous Met Gala). And it paid tribute entirely to the late, great, unparalleled Lee Alexander McQueen, showcasing some of his most iconic designs from unforgettable collections like Highland Rape, Voss, and that dress they spray painted Shalom Harlow in on stage.
I wasn’t super familiar with McQueen when I was growing up, but living in the shadow of having missed what is considered one of the best displays ever put on by The Met introduced me to his work and redefined how I viewed couture fashion. I think it’s safe to say that Lee Alexander McQueen will forever be my favorite fashion creative director and designer. But discovering McQueen in 2011 is akin to learning about Nirvana post 1994—you’ll never be able to follow these creative geniuses in real time; you’ll only ever be able to look back upon the greatness and influence they left upon the world.
Luckily, for McQueen fans and for the fashion house as a whole, the creative director position left vacant by McQueen after his tragic death in 2010 went to his right hand woman, the insanely talented Sarah Burton. And while Burton notably added a much softer and more feminine touch to the McQueen aesthetic, she kept the brand very much in line with the core values, techniques, imagery and overall message that Lee McQueen cherished. Transitioning from Lee to Sarah felt cohesive and natural. And over the last 12 years the McQueen label maintained the iconic essence of neo-gothic-noir meets theater kid with impeccable tailoring and storytelling. Until now.
I’m not sure what Kering (the group that owns McQueen and is in the process of acquiring Valentino) is doing, but they seem to love pushing out beloved creative directors who have become synonymous with labels of a different name. Pier Paolo Piccioli recently separated from Valentino after 16 years and was replaced by former Gucci CD Alessandro Michele, and sadly Sarah Burton was ousted after her SS24 collection to be replaced by newcomer Sean McGirr. With this unexpected change in direction, the fashion world sat impatiently waiting to see if McGirr, who has no prior association with the label, could fill out both Burton and McQueen’s very large (and possibly armadillo shaped) shoes.
He did not.
McGirr’s first collection for McQueen debuted at Paris Fashion Week for the Fall/Winter 2024 season. He presented a far less theatrical display than normally associated with the brand, focusing more on ill-fitting silhouettes and exaggerated proportions more akin to Demna’s Balenciaga than archival McQueen. Now I won’t ramble on about how McGirr’s collection was a train wreck that completely ignored everything McQueen and Burton stood for because there isn’t enough time for anyone to read my lengthy list of complaints. But I will tell you that the only similarities between McGirr’s fashion and McQueen’s fashion is that they both graduated from Central Saint Martins. And in my humble and irrelevant opinion, that is where the similarities stop. This would be like Versace no longer being overseen by Donatella after Gianni passed away. There’s no Versace without the gusto of those two siblings. Donatella is an extension of Gianni, just as Sarah was an extension of Lee. Bringing in an outsider to the brand, let alone an outsider to the label’s namesake, is a recipe for failure.
My prediction after seeing the response to Sean McGirr’s latest collection is that you better start hitting the secondhand sites like yesterday and buy up every last item from the original forerunners as you can now, for I fear the brand will soon become unrecognizable. Spring/Summer 2024 is the current collection in boutiques, but it is also the final collection designed by Burton. Once summer fades to fall, the shelves will be filled with McGirr’s lackluster designs and the heart of McQueen will begin to fade. Because while I do not believe that McGirr is inherently a bad designer, I do feel that he is a bad designer for McQueen. He’s completely lost the essence that made the McQueen label stand out from every other brand doing see-through chiffon dresses, oversized fits, and garbage bag chic. Once his designs begin to hit the mass market, I predict there will be a huge mark up on older designs. Case and point: the moment I heard that Sarah Burton was parting ways with the brand I bought one of her ready-to-wear dresses that I’d been eyeing for years. I was able to secure the dress brand new for $250. That exact same dress is now listed for anywhere between $800 and $1,500 on the secondhand market, and McGirr’s collection hasn’t even dropped yet.
For the last few years, McQueen ready-to-wear was accessible to fans of the brand on the secondhand market. I was able to secure five dresses and two pairs of heels for relatively low price points (I’m talking like 80-90% off original retail value) from a plethora of different sources. Hell, I even snagged a skull scarf for free because my former boss was going to donate the lost and found bin to Good Will and didn’t know what it was! That’s a $500 scarf!
And this isn’t just from one outlet. I utilize a variety of different apps, online stores, and in person shopping to build my McQueen collection at a fraction of the cost the hefty retail value would have been.
One of the key things to be aware of is that this musical chairs of creative directors seems to be the latest fad. Maria Grazia Chiuri left Valentino to take over Dior. Alessandro Michele parted ways with Gucci and is now the head of Valentino. Daniel Lee revived Bottega Veneta and has now moved to Burberry to revitalize their iconic plaid. So whenever a creative director from one brand steps down, there’s a crucial window to grab up some of their coveted designs before a new CD steps in. Sometimes a new creative direction can be life saving for the brand (the aforementioned Daniel Lee), other times it can be detrimental (see Virginie Viard’s runway and red carpet styling for Chanel).
And so I am deeply worried about the future of McQueen. It’s my favorite fashion house and I fear the intricate designs I adore will start to fade into obscurity to be replaced with more safe and marketable creations for a wider audience—something Gucci drove Michele out for in favor of the newest CD Sabato De Sarno. It’s trendy to be basic in luxury fashion right now and the more out of left field designs seem to be stagnant. In fact, the more eccentric styles from the early 2000s and 2010s are beginning to flood the resale markets at exorbitant prices, far more than what they were just a few years ago. And while fashion trends come and go, I do truly hope that some of the negative feedback McGirr’s collection faced will allow him to look more closely at the source material from the house he took over and allow him to embrace McQueen without losing Lee.
Long live McQueen.
Long live mcqueen 🙏🏼