Photo On the runway, satin bed jackets trimmed in marabou. Credit Tom Jamieson for The New York Times
LONDON — It took 15 years, but Alexander McQueen the brand finally came home.
On Sunday, more than a decade after Mr. McQueen the designer traded London for Paris as a show setting; his status as a wildly talented, personally complicated boy from the East End for membership in a luxury conglomerate (Kering); and six years after he killed himself, and Sarah Burton, his longtime No. 2, became creative director (and the Duchess of Cambridge became a loyal client), Ms. Burton returned to the R oyal Horticultural Halls in Westminster, the site of Mr. McQueen's spring 1997 show La Poupée, which also happened to be the first show she worked on for the brand, when she was still at Central Saint Martins.
The symbolism was hard to ignore.
It took a pregnancy (Ms. Burton's third child is due in two weeks) and an imminent new fragrance launch to bring the collection back to the British capital, if only for one season. The result was a moment of grace. If there was less associated fanfare and drama than some might have desired, that was itself a reflection of how far the brand has come since it left (and, indeed, of how far the fashion industry, not traditionally sensitive to issues such as childbirth, has come) and of how much Ms. Burton has made it her own.
Continue reading the main story Slide Show Alexander McQueen: Fall 2016 RTW CreditGuillaume Roujas/Nowfashion
During the first McQueen show in this space, inspired by the German artist Hans Bellmer, the women sloshed through water, and a black model was shackled to a giant piece of jewelry. It inspired shock and protest as well as applause. This time around, the set was a simple wood floor, divided by misty curtains, and the idea, Ms. Burton said backstage, was to explore the dreamscapes between fantasy and nightmare, where beauty ends and vanity begins.
She did it via precisely tailored white tuxedo jackets over slick black trousers inset with lace on the side and buckled at multiple points around the legs; buttery black leather coats and dresses embroidered with butterflies or hand-painted with roses, the aggression leeched out ; filigree knit lace dresses and satin bed jackets trimmed in marabou reminiscent of Jean Harlow. There was also a series of evermore elaborate chiffon and tulle gowns, the fabric like a wisp of memory under the embroidery, replete with references to the moon and the stars, unicorns and time, moths, eyes, fish — the characters and objects that live behind our eyelids.
"A tender spirit finds light in the darkness," the show notes said, and it was a fair (if implicit) description of the evolution of McQueen under Ms. Burton. What was sharp and seductive in its pain and triumph has become softer and more forgiving. Which does not mean it is any less tempting.
Indeed, in a season of rumors, one of the strongest is that Christian Dior, whi ch has been without a designer since Raf Simons resigned in October, is courting Ms. Burton. Judging by this show, you can understand why.
But: "I don't listen to rumors," she said backstage, shaking her head. "I can't." Besides, before Paris intrigue comes maternity leave. It's the right order.
