Alexander McQueen Extends a Helping Hand With Latest Circular Design Initiatives
If you love Alexander McQueen, you know it is not always easy to get. Especially if you can’t afford to just walk into a store and buy your heart’s desire for full price. And especially if you want an archive-worthy piece like the made for runway Armadillo heels or stunning skeletal pumps of years past. With two new projects, however, getting your hands on Alexander McQueen is made easier.
Back in 2019, Creative Director Sarah Burton launched a fabric donation program to aid fashion students across the United Kingdom, and now the second delivery of surplus stock is underway. Everything from womenswear taffetas to menswear tailoring cloths will be available for tutors to select. Leftover and stored at the atelier post-production cycle, these materials will be redistributed to design institutions where many 2020 graduate collections and in-term course work have already made use of the initiative.
Over 20 universities and educational community based projects have been reached by Burton’s program thus far, but in the coming months she plans to extend far beyond that. The creative director said her commitment comes from the belief that, “It’s our responsibility to extend our program of practical help and encouragement to students and fashion schools. The fabric donations build on the relationships we’ve made with educationalists across the U.K. who are teaching students from school age to graduate level and is broadening out to reach further in 2021. When times are so much more difficult for young creative people, taking action to share our resources and open eyes to opportunities has become a central in-house commitment at Alexander McQueen, which we all take very seriously.”
Of course the donation scheme was useful back in 2019, but to Burton’s point, the allocation of materials to design students is needed more now than ever before, due to the pandemic. Not only do young creatives face a lack of material resources, but Zoom learning has deprived them of hands-on instruction and the studio space typically provided by school campuses. Burton and her McQueen team seek to address these issues as well through a variety of specialist-led workshops that cover cutting, draping, pattern making, tailoring, textile construction, embroidery, and collection research with students of all ages.
In addition to helping young creators, making use of these often discarded materials is also a way of upcycling. This is a familiar practice for the Alexander McQueen atelier, who’s most recent Spring/Summer 2021 womenswear and menswear collections were made using stock fabrics.
Further extending the life cycle of its clothes, Alexander McQueen is teaming up with luxury resale site Vestiaire Collective. A select number of clientele will be contacted with an offer to sell their old McQueen back to the house once authenticated. In exchange for the piece, the client will receive an Alexander McQueen credit note to purchase new items from specified stores. While they enjoy shopping, their resold piece will make its way onto the Vestiaire Collective’s new “Brand Approved” page for re-purchase.
Emmanuel Gintzburger, CEO of Alexander McQueen, said the sustainable project is a result of Alexander McQueen’s commitment to "circular practice, both in the design studio and in the development of new business models." He went on to to say the brand is "delighted to be the first house in the world to collaborate with Vestiaire Collective on its Brand Approved program and to give beautifully crafted pieces a new story...We hope many houses will follow because to have impact at scale, we need to act collectively.”
The collaboration ensures McQueen’s commitment to circular practices and longer lasting luxury fashion extends not only into the future of the house, but also into its past. It is also representative of an industry-wide prioritization of better buying philosophies, from designers to supplier and retail apps. The collaboration will be available via the Vestiaire Collective app or website starting February 16, 2021.
