Alexander McQueen was in the news this week when the British director Andrew Haigh announced he would be making a new short film, Wild Bird, starring Russell Tovey and Olivia Coleman as the legendary late designer and his equally iconic late muse Isabella Blow. The fashion loving public’s curiosity about McQueen has its pros and cons for Seán McGirr. The house founder’s inimitable talent was matched by a ferocity of spirit; a decade and a half after his death he remains larger than life, his legend made more indelible with each new book, play, and movie devoted to his story.
That’s a lot to measure yourself against for a first-time creative director, even without the economic headwinds that have fashion brands are facing, but McGirr is bearing up against the weight and finding a following among Hollywood ingenues for whom McQueen the man might as well be as remote in the past as Dior or Saint Laurent. Not long after his fall show, Zendaya was seen in a floral chiffon halter neck dress. Chase Sui Wonders wore a delicate lilac gown from the same runway to the Met Gala last week, and Bella Ramsey and Blackpink’s Jennie have also repped his designs.
This pre-fall collection, soon to arrive in stores, is focused on the more everyday side of McGirr’s offering. “I just wanted to reinforce the wardrobe that I’ve started to build,” he said. “It’s a natural evolution of the spring ’26 show: We’ve continued the bluntly cut jackets, and the corsetry details were carried through into pencil skirts.” These pieces and the flower embroidered coat and jacket that close the lookbook retain the razor sharp precision of McQueen’s tailoring. A man’s suit cut in a bold reptile print pulled from Plato’s Atlantis, McQueen’s internet-breaking last runway show (the first to be live-streamed), looks familiar too. Bleached jeans with military frogging have a rock ‘n’ roll attitude that feels right here. Elsewhere, a crochet polo seemed coy until a closer look revealed the skulls, a house signature, picked out in the pattern. His most interesting idea for evening is a shrunken bomber and a very Zendaya-ready attenuated long skirt with a waistline that dips provocatively in front.
