PARIS — The Alexander McQueen show Monday night was terrific. Not perfect, not profound. But the clothes were compelling and exquisitely made. They demonstrated designer Sarah Burton’s eye for detail and her ability to make really wonderful suits and marvelous dresses that plenty of women would want to wear.
The clothes did not come prepackaged with philosophical baggage. As a woman leading a modestly sized but internationally known fashion brand, she lets the beauty of her clothes speak about power and skill and value. Their existence alone is a feminist statement.
In recent seasons, Burton had waded deep into British history. And while that must have been personally gratifying, the resulting collections often looked more like costumes than clothes. There was a bit too much authenticity in her historical references. For fall 2019, she mined her personal memories of growing up in the north of England surrounded by textiles mills and a pastoral landscape. She returned to those mill towns, took advantage of the fabrics produced there and found inspiration in the countryside. In essence, she set out to explore the raw materials of design and the beginnings of her own story as a designer.
There were a lot of associations for her clothes, and she described them all in a set of show notes that read almost like a diary. “Sharply tailored masculine suits with a strong shoulder, defined waist and fluid asymmetric drapes are cut in worsted flannels in shade of charcoal gray and anthracite and edged with a ‘Made in England’ selvage. They are woven in the mill towns that are the very soul of the British textile industry.”
