SUSTAINABILITY, the word we all keep hearing, but who is actually acting? With increasing pressure on luxury fashion houses to make drastic changes, now it seems Alexander McQueen is listening to the need for more sustainable practices in the crumbling climate.
Led by Sarah Burton, Alexander McQueen has spoken out about its new scheme, which intends to support fashion design students with fabric donations from its extensive archive. “The ethos at Alexander McQueen means that everything we use in researching and designing collections has always been archived and stored”, Burton notes. “We’ve never thrown anything away.”
The Flyte dressing gown by Steven Stokey-Daley made using McQueen Fabrics.
Photographer Liam Leslie
As of yet, reams of McQueen’s tweed, chiffon and silk have been distributed to fourteen colleges across the United Kingdom. We first caught sight of the scheme underway at the University of Westminster runway show during London Fashion Week this season. Where menswear designer Steven Stokey-Daley toiled with McQueen’s fabric for part of his graduate collection. Designing a wool tattersall check trench coat, and a dressing gown made from 120 panels (in three different silks), both cut from left over fabric used in previous McQueen collections.
This new initiative – set out to help the next generation student designers – came after the January 2019 opening of the top floor at the Alexander McQueen Old Bond Street store. A space now used for instillations, talks and study workshops, which has since housed two exhibits curated by Burton and her team.
Roses Exhibition at 27 Old Bond Street. Photographer Tim Beddow
The latest exhibition, titled Roses, looks back to flower-inspired designs produced by the house, showcasing McQueen’s early work from the ’90s alongside Burton’s most recent creations. The space – cleverly curated – sheds light on the design processes behind a selection of Burton and Lee McQueen’s masterpieces. With an emphasis on craft and practice, the walls were decked with pin boards displaying model line-ups, research images and sketches – rarely seen elements, far from the final polished outcome.
Roses Exhibition at 27 Old Bond Street. Photographer Tim Beddow
The new space provides students with an unprecedented insight into the rich history of Alexander McQueen, with the latest scheme allowing them to in some ways be a part of the story themselves. After being announced as the Fashion Awards’ Trailblazer for 2019 at the end of last year, it seems Sarah Burton is paving the way for luxury fashion houses. Holding out an olive branch to the generation that advocates change the most.
by Augustine Hammond