For the past few seasons Alexander McQueen Creative Director Sarah Burton has been resorting to the quietude of poetry as sparks of inspiration for her latest collection. A strategy that has been working quite well in finding the beauty in little things to execute and amplify on a larger scale. The beauty in nature or culture or in this case heritage. Burton’s FW20 references stemmed from a trip to Wales where she grew fond of several aspects of the country’s heritage.   

“The collection is a love letter to women and to families, colleagues and friends. We went to Wales and were inspired by the warmth of its artistic and poetic heritage, by its folklore and the soul of its craft, “ she commented. 

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She drew direct inspiration from the Wrexham Tailor’s Quilt was an artefact and one of the most well known patchworks that was crafted over a ten year from 1842 using recycled scraps he had used to craft the uniforms he made during the day. The quilt known for its detailed visuals which stood as a representation of something greater, braver and aspirational knowing that it was pieced together by scraps. The literal and symbolic sentiment of this resonated with the designer.

“The woman is courageous, grounded, bold: heroic. There is a sense of protection in the clothes, of safety and comfort, evoked through quilting and blankets. The hearts are a symbol of togetherness, of being there for others.” 

The collection was a collage of sharp seamed graphic tailoring that incorporated upcycled wool flannels woven in British mills from previous McQueen seasons and set in dramatic geometric blocks, which was also very much in line with the brand’s recent initiative of a fabric donation scheme for future designers. 

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“The ethos at Alexander McQueen means that everything we use in researching and designing collections has always been archived and stored”, she notes. “We’ve never thrown anything away.” Mindful of providing access to students who need resources, the scheme activates an imaginative purpose for the remaindered luxury fabrics which have been routinely saved after the sampling and production cycles of women’s and men’s collections over the past decade,” Burton said of the initiative. 

This collection was a further step to this project , pulling on fabrics from the brand’s archive to piece together an impressive collection which spoke to the concepts of warmth, family and heritage all while being sustainable while at it.

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Tags: Alexander Mcqueen, Fashion, Fashion Week, fw20, Paris Fashion Week