When the news broke about Seán McGirr, the incoming Alexander McQueen designer replacing Sarah Burton after a 26 year stint at the house, 13 as creative director, most of the British fashion industry were on the Eurostar, leaving Paris after a week of shows.
Overheard in the buffet carriage (no really, it’s all glamour) was a male journalist offering his emphatic thoughts on the highs and lows of the week’s collections. In praise of one he said “it’s what I’d wear if I was a woman”. Sadly the three women listening to him were of the opposite opinion. As a snapshot of everything that’s wrong with the fashion industry, it’s probably the best summing up I can offer.
Social media has been awash since the announcement of McGirr’s appointment as creative director of McQueen. A meme from 1Granary’s Instagram account (founded by Central Saint Martins graduate Olya Kuryshchuk) pointing out that this gives Kering, the conglomerate which owns McQueen, a full house of only white men at the creative helm in its fashion houses, quickly went viral.
It has led to a fairly fervent online discussion about the lack of progress the fashion industry has seemingly made when it comes to not just gender representation in the highest echelons, but also diversity.
Edward Buchanan, artistic director of Milan based brand Sansovino 6, commented that “this is an industry which continues to neglect its internal systemic inequalities that have existed since its inception. The fashion industry has never been an honest and inclusive space. ” Meanwhile Sarah Mower, a veteran fashion journalist and contributing editor of American Vogue, filled her Instagram feed with imagery from female-led brands asking followers to guess the designer “designed specifically with HR departments in mind”.
It is perhaps an unfair incoming to McGirr who, while relatively untested (the majority of his experience to date is as a menswear designer, McQueen’s main business is womenswear), should be allowed to bask a little in the glory of such a prominent appointment. But it does speak volumes at the growing alienation some in the fashion industry feel, and assertion that while the runways and advertising campaigns might profess a sense of change and modernity, it is still the same kind of faces at the top of the tree.
After a season of fashion shows where many remarked that what came down the catwalks was simply sellable “merch” interchangeable from one brand to the next, there is a growing chasm for new ideas.
For those straining their necks however, for where some feminine power might yet appear from, most fashion fans have October 30 Sharpie-marked into all calendar reminders. This is when Phoebe Philo will re-enter the chat, so to speak, and leave what all are hoping for is a mic drop of bank-balance-breaking thrills and reappraisal of what women might actually want or need to wear in 2023. The Philo-reset is coming, until then all bets are off.
