When Seán McGirr decided to bring McQueen back to London fashion week for the first time in 25 years, he also reconnected the house with Savile Row. Huntsman, the 1849-founded tailoring shop that made suits for Alexander McQueen’s own wardrobe, produced three looks for Sunday night’s show.
Those looks were the third collaboration between the two London institutions, following previous co-productions in 2002 and 2012. The seeds of this one were sewn around 18 months ago when McGirr arranged a visit to Huntsman’s 11 Savile Row premises—now as famous for their critical role in the Kingsmen movies as for their landmark status in tailoring lore—in order to research the orders Alexander McQueen commissioned for himself. McGirr was so impressed by what he saw that he hatched a plan to work to reunite McQueen the brand with Huntsman. “This has been in my head for a long time,” he said. “There’s a history of Lee and Sarah working with Huntsman, and it was a real pleasure working with them this season. They taught us a lot.”
Photo: Saskia Dixie
According to Campbell Carey, a Savile Row veteran and Huntsman’s head cutter and creative director for the last 11 years, the pleasure was mutual. Both McQueen the man and McQueen the brand’s previous interactions with the tailoring house were before Carey’s time there, so he began preparing for the collaboration by delving into their shared history. Researching McQueen’s commissions for Huntsman, he said, “made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”
Typically a Savile Row tailor will honor a client’s measurements, ensure a perfect fit, but also steer him or her towards a style its experts intuit will give that client maximum satisfaction. McGirr, however, arrived with a much more prescriptive brief. He had been looking closely at Tommy Nutter, whom he called “the first rebel of Savile Row,” and at the way he disrupted the conventions of England’s tailoring establishment through decadently curved sleeves, emphatic shoulder rolls and sharpened proportions. McGirr’s aim was to “blend those Tommy Nutter codes and Lee McQueen codes,” he said.
Photo: Saskia Dixie
