Honour, truth, and valour. They were the three words plastered across Sarah Burton’s refined workingman’s tailoring at her Alexander McQueen show on Sunday afternoon, but they may as well have been the slogans for the London men’s collections altogether. “I definitely wanted it to feel like a British collection,” Burton said after the show, but even more than that her mantras reflected the martyr-like drive of all those young British designers, who are currently walking in the footsteps of the McQueen legacy, trying to make it as the next big, commercially successful thing in international fashion.
From Christopher Shannon’s neo-depressive bin bag motifs and “Thanks for nothing” sentiment to the murky spleen of the MAN triangle and even Stuart Vevers’ outdoorsy normcore at Coach, shown on a cheerful backdrop of grey telephone masts in a foggy American snowscape, this season’s London menswear offering has dealt with the financially unforgiving reality of the fashion industry and modern masculinity’s tricky battle between self-expression and self-belief.
“Whatever uniform you wear and whatever you do in life, you should be honest and courageous and true to yourself,” Burton explained, and while her words could have been applied to most people and situations in the world, they just happened to have a certain significance in a season that’s missing some of London’s best menswear designers on its show schedule. Why? Because London fashion has always encouraged the impossible: the dream, as Hollywood would have it. But while honesty and courage will take you far, the road to success is really, really long, especially in menswear.
What it all said about McQueen is its menswear division’s ongoing relevance in its hometown and around the world where a collection like Burton’s pretty straightforward deconstruction of uniforms for autumn/winter 15 made the earth quake a little bit in ye olde London. Perhaps it was because of said effortlessness – Burton’s own creative valour – or maybe it was the solemn feeling of national pride. Either way, it stood for way more than those three words alone.
Credits
Text Anders Christian Madsen
Photography Ash Kingston