Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2018 Menswear Review

     Sarah Burton has shifted her usual London-based menswear productions for Alexander McQueen to Paris, perhaps in an attempt to configure the womenswear and menswear identities together. The ideas of travel and unifying McQueen gender codes were the starting points. Perfect, strong shouldered tailoring opened the show but were to be expected. White leather bibbed shirts and smart tuxedo striped trousers created cleanliness and minimalism. An almost-bare indoor setting allowed the models to tread on light wood planks laid above gravel spread across the floor. However, there was an element lacking in this McQueen collection: symbolism. Sure, every garment had references to the past, the scalloped leather shirts were Puritanical and extreme zippered leather pieces were punk rock, but there was no strong message or intellectual keepsake from this collection. Perhaps it was because Burton and crew wanted only to present what McQueen menswear is at its core.

     So, peeled away are the historicism, gimmicks, and the theatricality, and what’s left? Prince of Wales checks, wonderful camel coats, and knitwear that resembles Tutor-era insignias and textiles. The McQueen clientele has changed so much in the brand’s twenty five-year history. When Lee McQueen made menswear in the early fantastically intrusive shows, he twisted ideas about classic masculinity with his clothes. Now, aristocrats and even the Royal Family don McQueen under Sarah Burton. It would be hard to keep those high-profile clients if the shows were too aggressive, of course, because the English upper class has always believed in quiet respectability.

     As the collection started to become more dramatic, carmine red threads hung from sketches and hand-written notes by Rudyard Kipling like enemy lines drawn on charts during war. These threads hung from illustrations of plants like bloody roots, begging to be released from the two-dimensional prints. Those hanging roots began to bloom into three-dimensional flowering fabrics on an evening jacket and coat. The flowering buds then went through another transformation, turning into black and silver glittering trees, with thousands and thousands of black threads hanging from them. This artwork was fitted onto the last two looks and were the most regal things produced this menswear season.

     There is an undoubtable new breath at McQueen menswear, and it will be captivating to see whether or not Burton and team will serve a completely new identity for its more masculine side, or will it continue their formula of presenting tailoring that is near art? We shall see.

Photo Credits: VogueRunway.com