Alexander McQueen SS24 Focuses on Archive-Derived Proportions and Silhouettes

While also working with artists, gold and crystal embroidery, and curvaceous sculptures to redefine menswear traditions.

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Sarah Burton‘s Alexander McQueen is defined by simplicity. But in the simplicity lies intricacy, a level of attention to detail that requires one to look beyond the obvious in order to find details that are steeped in tradition, history, and Lee Alexander McQueen‘s House legacy. Spring/Summer 2024 takes these notions and applies them to a softer, easy-on-the-eye touch, “more molded and curved” than the collections that have come before it.

Shaping is everything this season. Forget your padded shoulders and cinched waists as you know them, as Burton plays with proportions in an entirely new way; somewhat feminine, ironically masculine, sartorial by nature and subversive by form. The first look explores such elements beautifully, as a double-breasted tailored coat in black scuba wool positions perfectly peaked lapels and a curvaceous waistline with shoulders that are rounded, delicately growing into wide-fitting arms.

Yellow wool grain de poudre is used to create suit pants that ooze a slightly more relaxed attitude than McQueen’s usual tailoring, a point enhanced by the pair’s elasticated cuffs that are tucked into rubber-clad leather combat boots. The same curved structures appear later, this time on a double-breast suit jacket, while stronger, sharped proportions come to life on a double-breasted overcoat in charcoal cavalry twill, a double-breasted tailored jacket, and pleated tailored shorts in charcoal wool mohair.

Lee Alexander McQueen-isms are rife, as tailored tailcoats pinching at the waist and darting from the navel to the middle of the chest with double-breasted treatment cut the model into shape. On the contrary, the “Fold Print” developed by long-term collaborator and artist Simon Ungless offers abstract contortion to otherwise crisp and clean suiting, distracting the shapes of the suit in favor of something avant-garde and destructive. This appears time and time again, such as on the black and gold metallic fold poly faille jacquard cape and matching suits, or with looks centered around gold crystal harnesses, or the sleeveless knit vest decorated with gold sequin and crystal embroidery, à la McQueen’s archive.

For SS24, the artistry is both overt and covert. While flowers are crocheted together to create three-dimensional vests, there’s also beauty in many other items like a cape parka with a knotted shoulder, or the metal zip-clad black leather trench coat that feels like a must-have item for any McQueen lover.