I have argued and
strongly put across my views in the worst opinionated manner you will ever
witness. I have stressed, complained and even shed tears. My moods have fluxed
from great anger to complete sadness. I have felt emptiness but with confusion
and disbelief on my hands. Ladies and Gentleman, meet the world’s biggest, the
most stubborn, bratty child you will ever meet. Yes, that is me and what
am I even on about? Just over two years
ago, the fashion industry lost one of the greatest designers to ever live and
to be a devoted McQueen lover like myself, the emotions described above somehow
manage to make its way out of me each season Sarah Burton presents since the
Fall/Winter 2010 collection. Each collection further and further moves away
from the original McQueen aesthetic, there is no longer that sense of theatrical
drama and a powerful story driving through the collection. Each look McQueen
presented was unique and nothing you’d see before. He would constantly shock,
inspire and make you fall in love with him more and more. And to me, I feel
this lacks now in these collections Burton presents. That original aesthetic
and what McQueen stood for is completely lost. The last Fall/Winter 2012
season, on seeing the collection, I can remember tweeting: “It is no longer
Alexander McQueen, it is Sarah Burton.” Harsh but true words, I would justify
but here I am, flicking through the Resort 2013 collection Burton has presented
and I just want to hug her and tell her I’m sorry for every little nasty thing
I said. I
absolutely love it. I was speechless
and yes, I
did shed a tear but not
in an angry, stressful haze but in fact because I was relieved and ecstatic. It
was literally like my true love just asked me to marry me. One hand in the air
and the other on my heart and I swear I am not even joking how serious I am
about this.
Burton looked to David Bowie for the Resort 2013 collection where
his gender-blurring Glam rock looks in the early seventies were used for source
of inspiration which gave a masculine meets feminine essence to the collection
yet still achieved that perfect balance. The collection took on the role of the
much more masculine driven side to the McQueen label, where tailoring was
revisited. “I thought it would be nice to go back to the body. To be sleeker,
more sexy,” Sarah Burton comments. “We had been doing a lot of peplums, but we
took them away to make the torso fitted and wanted to visually elongate the
legs as much as possible.” Alexander McQueen was well known for his wide
knowledge in tailoring and the ability to adapt the menswear templates for
womenswear clothing as previously trained with the tailors on Savile Row. What
is remarkable is Burton is also further adapting and although stays true to the
original ideas McQueen presented in his tailoring, she moves forward. Trousers
did not reach below the waist as were the infamous ‘bumsters’ but stayed at the
waistline and even higher in some cases. They were also bootcut (as many of the
McQueen trousers were) and flared outwards and with the addition of the very
high waistlines that nipped into the waist, it created elongated legs as if the
model was almost like the dragonflies that appeared on several of the garments.
The shoulders were peaked creating that much harder edge to the garments which
empowered the female figure but still oozed femininity which demonstrated
everything that McQueen stood for. To see Burton move away from the pretty but
extravagant dresses and move back to the much harder, tailored and masculine
side McQueen demonstrated in his collections is what has made me fall back in
love with the McQueen label.
In the space of a couple of minutes, through a
series of 28 photographs of beautifully constructed garments; Sarah Burton made
me grow up. She isn’t McQueen and of course, she cannot produce or even come to
the same level to what McQueen did. She has her own style and own aesthetic but
what she can do is the ability to stay true to what McQueen did and keep that
spirit alive in the collections. I’ve came to terms that I’m no longer going to
see these dramatic, dark and inspiring shows with individual garments were each
look is completely different to the last but instead a collection that is much
simpler yet still timeless and full of luxurious pieces that have the McQueen
spirit running through them. With the McQueen CEO Jonathan Akeroyd announcing that
the Alexander McQueen label is set to dominate British fashion by becoming the
best British luxury ready-to-wear label, it is clear that we will witness this.
We will witness what one man created, a company that showcased his ideas and dreams
and even nightmares transit into a luxurious label that will run for years to
come to always pay tribute to that one man. And to that I say, long live
Alexander McQueen. You can see all the looks from the collection here.
