Alexander McQueen’s Anatomical Wonder A/W´23 Show

Naomi Campbell opened Alexander McQueen's triumphant return to Paris, a collection which drew on its ‘90s heritage, anatomical precision and a dark elegance. Anders Christian Madsen reports.

It was a darker take on Alexander McQueen

Harder, better, faster, stronger. This season, Sarah Burton made a triumphant return to Paris with an Alexander McQueen collection that blew the socks off the City of Lights. In one of her – if not the – most ravishing orchestrations of her creative directorship, she delved into the darker, more dangerous side to the brand’s genetics and delivered a proposal founded in the most deliciously evil cut-glass tailoring, insane knitwear woven like mutated human anatomy, and terrifyingly beautiful extra-terrestrial dresses that, quite literally, gave you out-of-body experiences.

It was inspired by anatomy

Burton drew on ideas of anatomy: of clothing, of bodies, and of Alexander McQueen itself. “We’re almost back at the beginning of McQueen where it started,” she said backstage. “Savile Row: revisiting the structuring of garments on the body and how you construct tailoring, and then tearing it apart and subverting it and turning it upside-down on its head.” They were magical words for tailoring freaks (there are a lot of us this season) that lived up to the fantasy: coats, razor-sharp and long and formidable; suits, squared and sliced and dismembered. Trousers draped over the soles of pointed stilettos tightened intensely with every step the model took.

It incorporated orchids

An investigation into Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of the human anatomy fuelled Burton’s submersion into the world of guts and bones. Beautifully, she mirrored that rather gruesome image in the form language of orchids. “Muscular and fragile,” she called them, like the shared dichotomies of the women and men on her runway. They took female form in shielding tailored bustiers and dominatrix leather coats, while male models wore Victorian man girdles over white shirts with dramatically cut trousers. “Tailoring dissected, bodies dissected: proportion,” as Burton summed it up.

It referenced ‘90s Alexander McQueen

Presented in a circular tent in front of Les Invalides – its dome hovering over proceedings – models spiralled their way around rings of runways to the soundtrack from Alexander McQueen’s autumn/winter 1998 show, Ring of Fire, played backwards. In every way, the show felt like a reconnection to the more sinister beauty found in the house’s archives. For Burton, who was there through it all, it’s as much within her creative ownership as it was Lee McQueen’s, and it was thrilling to see that atmosphere brought back to life through her lens.

It captured the season's taste for elegance

“Going back to where things began makes you feel quite grounded. You can look at those pieces and they’re still incredibly relevant and beautiful. There’s a longevity to them. They’re amazing pieces,” Burton said of the archival garments that had informed the collection. Their influence created a collection that nailed the desire for elegant reduction and simplified formality that has defined the season. “It feels nice to feel quite smart. With the times we live in, you want to feel quite formal and quite together, I suppose. I think it’s important to be grounded when the world is in such chaos,” Burton said. “And maybe, if it’s upside-down, it’s because the world is upside-down.”