McQueen meets difficult moment with fatalistic glamour at Paris show

Beneath the Paris fashion week hoopla — Chappell Roan resplendent in the front row, champagne flowing backstage — there were darker undercurrents at Alexander McQueen’s show. The brand has seen a 60% decline in turnover over the past three years, made workforce cuts at its London headquarters last year, and a third of its 180 employees in Italy are thought to be at risk of losing their jobs.

Fifteen years after the death of Lee McQueen, the house is struggling to maintain momentum. Perhaps adversity suits McQueen, which has always leant into a fatalistic kind of glamour. Seán McGirr, the 37-year-old Dubliner who has been creative director since 2023, showed one of his strongest collections to date.

The show opened with a herringbone jacket long enough — if barely — to pass as a dress, strictly buttoned through the waist and dissolving into soft waves that skimmed the upper thigh; McGirr said he had been looking at archive pieces from McQueen’s 20-year-old Widows of Culloden collection for the silhouettes.

France, Paris

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