McQueen’s spring 2027 show was billed as a homecoming. Even though the brand has staged runways in London as recently as 2022, they’ve all taken place off the official calendar, or during Paris Fashion Week. The last time the label had a slot on the LFW schedule was February 2001.
Two-plus decades later, the brand is at an inflection point. Seán McGirr is nearing the ever-scrutinized three-year mark as creative director—a milestone that historically sees a designer either exit or reaffirm their commitment to a brand. (That revolving door moves faster and faster nowadays, however.) Meanwhile, McQueen’s been more of a focus for parent company Kering under the new chief executive officer, Luca de Meo. As part of a larger refocusing and repositioning strategy, he hired Gianfranco D’Attis from Prada to become the brand’s CEO over the summer. His first order of business was to bring the McQueen runway show back home.
“This collection is a celebration of London’s ceaselessly stimulating and transcendent power,” McGirr wrote in the show notes. “McQueen is a London-born house, and the city’s uncompromising attitude and subversive spirit sit at its very heart.”
Staged under the vaulted ceiling of the undercroft at Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, the show brought out some of London’s coolest and most influential on Sunday night, including Alexa Chung, Emma Corrin, and one-time Alexander McQueen runway model Caitríona Balfe. And this season, McQueen leans into the comeback theme in more ways than one.
That final London Fashion Week collection from fall 2001 was one of the first to incorporate the now-signature skull motif into ready-to-wear. Fittingly, McGirr, who’s been firmly #TeamSkullPrintRevival for a while now, brings it back in its most dazzling form for spring 2027: as embroidery on a bedazzled, netted dress.
Behind the scenes, the Irish designer recruited artist Shaun Leane, one of the late Lee McQueen’s longtime collaborators, to create some of the precious metal jewelry seen on the runway. He also sourced two of Leane’s past designs for the house—headpieces from the fall 1998 Joan and fall 2004 Pantheon ad Lucem collections—to be worn by some of the models.
By this point in his tenure, we can recognize McGirr’s sensibilities and own taste in his collections. These come across in the sharply shouldered tailored jackets with low-slung trousers, translucent corsetry on wispy gowns, face-obscuring lace collars, and cheekily short but voluminous skirts in the spring collection—all hallmarks of his design language. Spring 2027 goes big on texture, as seen in the pleated, undulating frills on a one-shoulder minidress and skirts peeking out from underneath peplum jackets cinched tight at the waist; metallic florals sewn onto jacquard or netted fabric; and the feathered pannier-like waist on an oil-slick and sheer lace gown.
Much of the challenge for any creative director at a house as visionary, as studied, and as influential as McQueen is paying homage to the ideas that have enchanted for decades while pushing them forward in a way that’s their own. It’s no small task—especially after a McQueen spring 2010 original owned by Naomi Campbell just sold at auction for over $1.5 million.
