McQueen has a great 'System Designer'
There comes a time in your life, before reading the Taschen book, before the designer obituary, where thousands of people flock to pay their very untimely and, most of the time, bandwagoning, homage, you have to cast judgment whether the collection(s) you’re looking at will be indicative of a legendary career the designer may have in the future. It is not an easy feat; we are so used to having the cushion of the collective fashion consensus to comfortably call something iconic, but someone’s got to start this narrative right? What is the proper etiquette? Does it have to be someone of stature, or can it be any Tom, Dick, and Harry? Most importantly, are you equipped with what’s necessary to spot the ‘iconic-ness’ and would you have the courage to call it out? I want to say that Seán McGirr’s McQueen is giving me more and more confidence to say that his work will prove more memorable than Burton’s, but that comes with a price.
McGirr’s succession of McQueen’s name has been a stressful one, not just the daunting task of satisfying naysayers, but each British legacy brand has been struggling to prove to the fashion world that they’ve still got it. It’s also perhaps a dream of many that McQueen will one day have a long-awaited homecoming and show at London Fashion Week again, and use their gravity to revive the now withering event. While this new McQueen has been failing to burst into the mainstream conversation unless pivotal events (e.g., Sarah Burton’s departure, Seán McGirr’s debut, etc), McGirr’s work has been maturing in silence.
In American Football terminology, being called a ‘system Quarterback’ is a name that most Quarterbacks (the guy who throws the ball) would fight tooth and nail to avoid. A ‘system Quarterback’ refers to how the success of that player is highly dependent on the team’s schemes and the coach’s capability, if you look at that player alone, looking at their individual skills, they fall short immediately, or worse, to complete irrelevance. Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff has long been called a ‘system Quarterback’ due to his overall lack of skills. Doesn’t have an outstandingly strong arm, or scrambling ability, or playmaking ability for that matter, but his well-rounded build has allowed Dan Campbell to fuel the Detroit Lions to great successes in recent years. Hence, being called ‘system Quarterback.’ Long story short, Jared Goff is not a name that you need to concern yourself with, but ‘system quarterback’ is a concept I wish you would understand. Of course, even if you’re not into sports, you can imagine how heartbreaking it must be to be called talentless, which means that making it to the big leagues doesn’t come with the Cinderella story of being a memorable player. But is your bruised ego really the worst thing the critics can do to you? Is being the perfect gear in the system, providing just the right value, the worst thing ever?
Seán McGirr, arguably, has failed to inspire me in the 4-5 collections that he has put out, but he doesn’t need to. I would say that if Seán McGirr, unfortunately, wakes up tomorrow as an All-American jock who was drafted first pick in the NFL, he would grow into what I mentioned, a system quarterback. In this case, a ‘system designer.’ The brand Alexander McQueen is a tricky one; it is a name that has such a strong legacy, but at the same time, one that we should collectively move on from. Unlike maisons like Dior or Chloé, where house codes are strictly enforced through a variety of creative directors, McQueen is a one-and-done. What Lee McQueen left behind isn’t a house code, but a trailblazing memory, and we know that forcing what McQueen created into ‘house codes’ is foolishly impossible. When no one satisfies Lee’s dream of ‘burning the brand down when he isn’t here anymore,’ we know that the continuous operation of the brand ‘Alexander McQueen’ is a guaranteed road heading away from its origin, and will eventually need to decide whether they are comfortable with the name ‘Alexander McQueen’ meaning something else. This is a thought understood by intellectuals and rejected by whiny fanboys who think their fleeting comments contribute to the conservation effort. To play well within this McQueen system, the best thing is to mimic and commercialize.
However, the nuance here is that to be a system quarterback, you, of course, need to be coachable, exceptionally coachable, might I add. Unlike what the definition suggests, the player needs to be highly malleable and at the least, athletically capable to execute what the offensive coordinators command. In other words, even if you lack the ‘star factor,’ you are still required to be a great athlete to start with. The people involved in making the decision of picking Seán McGirr saw potential, perhaps McGirr understood the brand, perhaps he showed great leadership and communication skills, or unsurprisingly, perhaps he is just a White man (for the sake of this essay, let’s ignore this for now). Kerring Group slotted McGirr into the McQueen playbook with confidence that he can continue what Lee started and what Sarah strengthened. McGirr has the skills to mimic tastefully, he also possesses the skill to commercialize fabulous fashion, but still, this is nothing more than playing great by the rules and shining under the confines of our collective perception of McQueen, albeit a hard perception to live up to.
Suppose we extrapolate a graph of McGirr’s design language maturity and the level of sophistication in his work over the past few seasons, albeit a very superficial and data-less graph. In that case, we will see an upward trend without a doubt. I believe McGirr has shown a useful blueprint to any aspiring designers on what to do and what to avoid. From a very disconcerted debut collection to a very concerted SS26 womenswear, from an identity crisis to consistently nailing the balance between old and new. A little bit of Sarah Burton’s crimson flowers and a little bit of McQueen’s “No. 13,” but none of the references made are so didactic that it takes the attention away from McGirr’s latest creations (I might be proven wrong if I’ve read the shownotes or seen interviews of him speaking on this collection, but at this moment, I don’t think it is on-the-nose.) The carpeted venue, combined with a tipi-like structure made out of ratchet straps, illustrates the kind of synergy McGirr aims to achieve - a synergy that is both grounded and rough. And evidently so, his clothes embody the kind of rebellion that isn’t headstrong, but meticulous and confident. Perhaps the most significant selling point of McGirr, and why I think a designer like himself is the best thing that can happen to Alexander McQueen right now, is that he is an alchemist of ideas. McGirr understands what the commentary crowd wants to see (here I emphasize that these commentators’ perceptions and desire for fashion do not exceed the ‘seeing’ part), which is ruder and bolder clothes, and the reality for the brand’s actual clients, who have been acclimated to the sartorial style of Sarah Burton. With that distinction, it is very clear that SS26 is McGirr’s latest alchemic attempt at satisfying the customer base, but also to, for lack of a better word, shut people up. While it is the noble thing to say that no designers should care about what the internet is saying, that sentence is simply not true. In this day and age, all designers should care to some extent, but few designers are willing to do so. To this point alone, McGirr has done an increasingly better job at achieving the best visual balance, all things considered, but is this indicative of anything that McGirr is a good designer?
I would be foolish to label any designer as bad, as a bad designer cannot sell or convince anyone that their clothes are worth anyone’s money. With this principle alone, 100% of designers in the limelight already pass this initial litmus test. At the same time, a good designer, in my opinion, has that certain factor that creates fantasy because they are not just entrusted with technical tasks like seamstresses in ateliers; they are here to guide whoever’s paying attention to a place where no one knows existed. McGirr undoubtedly lacks that as his ‘moments’ so far still live under McQueen’s shadow, simply because he is heading that way, there is still an air of emulation. And that makes Seán McGirr a ‘system designer’ in my eyes.
A very simple question, then, is: who isn’t a system designer? Designers that has the ability to disrupt, though not necessarily constantly on display, the previous preconceived notion of the brand, like Dario Vitale at Versace, Demna Gvasalia, Virgil Abloh, Stella McCartney at Chloé. Another good question to ask is also: who looks like a system designer but isn’t one? Louise Trotter is a great example; her recent debut at Bottega Veneta might seem like a mere mimicry of Blazy’s Bottega Veneta, but Louise Trotter’s design language when it comes to constructing structure in garments arguably runs deeper than Blazy’s. Trotter’s penchant for the visibly sturdy dominated the majority of her career in the past decade. Julien Klausner at Dries Van Noten can also be mistaken for a system designer. Given his background at Dries Van Noten prior to Dries Van Noten’s departure, Julien’s work exudes the brand’s signature elegance and suave, but in my opinion, Julien Klausner has taken Mr. Van Noten’s work, tinkered with the idea of suave, magnified it, and is steering it into a different direction, quite visibly so already. So one last question: who else is a system designer? I would say Daniel Lee with Burberry. Pharell Williams, not a designer, but a creative director, is an example that innovation isn’t his priority. Williams’ focus is to understand the market and algorithmically create products that suit Louis Vuitton best, and encourage their customer base to buy more.
Being a system designer suits McGirr, and he is shining under pressure; everything is done with improving accuracy and to a very high standard, but unfortunately for those of us who want to selfishly ask designers to forget about the money and help us dream, this doesn’t seem possible from a ‘system designer.’ At least that’s what I am getting now from McGirr, and even with all I commented, I can’t say I want that to change, I am happy to see what’s happening at McQueen, and perhaps being a ‘system designer’ is the best way to ensure you secure enough time to become someone memorable.