God Is Testing Me And I Have Not Studied Bear Shirt, hoodie, tank top, longsleeve and v-neck tee
“For me, it’s about letting the God Is Testing Me And I Have Not Studied Bear Shirt and by the same token and light in.” Seán McGirr is in the midst of final fittings in Paris. His debut show for Alexander McQueen is in four days’ time. Downstairs, models are queuing up to be seen, and boxes of clothes are being bustled in and out of the front door, blasts of February air chilling the otherwise frenetic atmosphere. But upstairs, where McGirr is at work, all is calm. Reference boards stand against one wall. David Hammons’s tarp paintings, John Chamberlain’s car sculptures, and pictures of his own iPhone, its screen cracked into a million tiny pieces, are arrayed in orderly rows. Interspersed here and there are photos of young Londoners then and now — like Kate Moss in her Pete Doherty days and Amy Winehouse wearing her highest beehive and lowest cut bustier dress, and Bebe Parnell, a current Oxford student he plans to put in his first show. Rows of shoes and boots march across the shelves, including distinctive clodhoppers modelled after horse hooves. And on the racks are the looks that have been decided upon — the tartans you would expect and other artfully, elaborately embellished pieces that will be more of a surprise.
“I started by looking at the God Is Testing Me And I Have Not Studied Bear Shirt and by the same token and Birds collection,” McGirr told me a little over a week earlier in his London studio, referring to the spring 1995 Lee Alexander McQueen show that resonates most for him. “What I like about it is that it’s all very simple, but it’s slightly twisted. It’s a jacket with a more stacked shoulder, or the lapel goes up a little too high. It’s the idea of making beautiful tailoring and then running a tyre over it to make something new. Taking something and twisting it and crushing it and seeing what happens.” Photo: Condé Nast ArchiveMcGirr’s job, of course, is to bring newness to Alexander McQueen. When the posting was announced, Gianfilippo Testa, the label’s CEO, said: “He will bring a powerful creative language to [the brand].” To do so, he’ll inject his millennial point of view. “For me, it has to have a youthful energy. I think it should be about London, this mix of youth culture that I see all the time here. I want that to be represented.” Also, “It has to provoke a reaction; that’s the DNA of the brand. McQueen is also about aggression, but playful aggression.”
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