The new McQueen lookbook was photographed at Hatfield, a grand country house outside of London. There’s an oak tree on the property that is said to be the site where Elizabeth I learned she would become queen. “It’s quite mega,” said creative director Sean McGirr of the old manse, one of whose astounding wood mantelpieces features in these pictures. “I thought about this aristocratic punk—that’s just very McQueen, that’s who he was surrounded by, think of Isabella Blow.”
The late magazine editor Isabella Blow, who famously bought the entirety of Lee McQueen’s graduate collection, is the subject of a biopic in pre-production. In it, Andrea Riseborough stars as Blow, Emilia Clarke plays her pal Daphne Guinness, and Hayley Atwell takes on the role of Alexandra Schulman, the Vogue editor who employed her. IMDb doesn’t list an actor for McQueen, but surely he’ll have a part in the story.
McQueen’s personal biography is equally as riveting as the clothes he made, and the Saltburn-y location of this shoot suggests the newcomer McGirr has cottoned to that fact. The upcoming movie could be a boon for him, with its potential to awaken a younger generation to the house founder’s extraordinary talent and mystique.
Being an off-season without the high stakes of a runway show, this collection registers as more street-ready, or maybe house party-ready, than his fall debut. He said the concept for the shoot was “girls and boys hanging out, wearing each other’s clothes.” The focus is on tailoring and everyday statement pieces like sweaters whose popped collars reach past the ears, and leather jackets with eensy proportions above exaggerated peplums, and jeans with nail fringe embroidery decorating the front pockets. T-bar hardware extends the punkish feeling to bags and shoes.
English school uniforms were a starting point, their aristocratic connotations tweaked by the irreverence of double-breasted jackets nipped tight, cargos cut with extra slouch, and shirt collars that extend almost to the shoulders. McGirr said the clothes were designed to be unisex, including the paperbag-waist trousers, soft blouses with boho ruffles, and cropped cardigans shrunken enough to leave gaps between their buttons. “I like the idea that you don’t change it,” he explained. “If you do change it [across genders] it loses its panache.”
The collection’s print is a rendering of Velazquez’s portrait of the Pope Innocent X, chopped up and reassembled on pajama separates and an asymmetrically draped dress, and embellished with crystals on a turtleneck bodysuit. McGirr is an art lover who likes to spend his trips to New York in its galleries, so it’s tempting to look for easter eggs in the 17th century masterpiece. Centuries later the portrait inspired Francis Bacon’s “Screaming Pope” series, and Google reveals that a study for the famous painting now lives at another historic English house, Apsley House, in London. The draped dress makes a centerpiece of the letter in Pope Innocent’s hand. What message is McGirr trying to send? He said he simply liked the idea that the girls and boys at the party were “wearing the art from the walls.”
