Seán McGirr’s Finds His Guiding Force in Folklore at Alexander McQueen
Review of McQueen Spring 2025 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
Irish folklore, twisted tailoring, fragile beauty
In only his second season, Seán McGirr is still honouring the Alexander McQueen house codes and we are still not fully witnessing the full expression of the young designers vision. Its true that staying close to what is known and loved will certainly keep those watching the bottom line happy, but as we have already had a different version of the McQueen brand under his predecessor, now is the time for the designer to break free from the past, and simply use it as his jumping off point to really establish the groundwork for his era under the McQueen name. With all that, comes the weight of responsibility – not least the cultural significance of the brand and its place in the annals of fashion history.
Taking the folkloric legend of the banshee as a starting point, a female spirit who is described as a “solitary, foreboding figure” in the notes, McGirr talks of her representing “something real and potent now”. Taking a tale of folklore and applying it to today and the times we are living through provided the perfect backdrop for the designer to create a collection with moments of sheer brilliance which riffed on McQueen signatures – twisted tailoring and avant garde artistry – while giving us further insight into his personal vision for the brand.
The show space itself was a world away from the designers debut and the monolithic structure from which the models descended onto a metallic runway, which appeared “exposed, as if excavated beneath crushed tiles – replicas of the Beaux Arts own” was created in collaboration with British artist Tom Scutt.
Alexander McQueen was always known to subvert and corrode the rules of the fashion world, which would often lead to shock and misunderstanding at the time. It has to be said that we are not in the same time now, and rarely does anything seem subversive or truly provocative, so rather than turn to gimmicks to illicit a reaction, today we had the visual unravelling of the modern banshee as twisted tailoring mimicked the clutching of ones chest in anticipation of the so-called foreboding, and translucent layers of chiffon in high-neck dresses were fit for wailing across ancient ruins, until eventually her beautiful layers became shredded and frayed.
The storytelling throughout the show had those in attendance fully engaged and anticipating each look. A positive sign for the designer who may need a few seasons to find his footing and establish his own McQueen codes, as even though this collection felt very much aligned to the historical narratives that set the brand apart, he needs to continue to push for a more intense level of rawness and drama to bring the brand back to its positioning as an influential and original ready-to-wear fashion house.
THE DIRECTION
THE QUOTE
The banshee is rooted in the history of McQueen, but it’s also a story that I grew up with so feels deeply personal to me…she has come to represent something real and potent now.
Seán McGirr, creative director, Alexander McQueen
THE WRAP UP
The positioning of the Alexander McQueen brand within the cultural lexicon will make it a difficult task for any creative director taking the helm, but McGirr is starting to find his own way and in harnessing the storytelling rooted in the brands DNA he won’t lose the essence of what made it so influential, but he also needs to put himself into his designs, so we can know what Alexander McQueen by Seán McGirr will truly look like in the seasons to come.
