Three days ago, designer Sarah Burton presented her last collection for Alexander McQueen, now her successor has been chosen. Seán McGirr takes over the creative direction of the British luxury fashion house.
His experience, personality and creative energy will give Alexander McQueen a powerful creative language while building on the house’s unique legacy, McQueen CEO Gianfilippo Testa said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Alexander McQueen is a house we are passionate about and we are confident that Seán McGirr will be able to continue his journey with renewed creative vigor,” said Kering CEO François-Henri Pinault. “We look forward to starting this new chapter in the history of this unique brand.”
McQueen relies on a blank slate
This is McGirr’s first role at the helm of a major luxury house, but the Irish-born man has worked for various fashion houses throughout his career. Since 2020 he has headed the men’s fashion of the British label JW Anderson before also taking over responsibility for the women’s collection. He previously worked as a womenswear designer for the Belgian designer Dries Van Noten and worked at Uniqlo’s creative offices in Tokyo and Paris from 2014 to 2018. There he worked on the men’s collections under the direction of Lemaire designer Christophe Lemaire.
The designer is now following in the footsteps of Sarah Burton, who worked for the luxury fashion house for a total of 26 years and rose from an intern position to Head of Design for Womenswear. Ultimately, Burton took over as creative director of the brand in 2010 following the death of the designer of the same name, Alexander Lee McQueen.
Her final fashion show for the label at Paris Fashion Week was considered an emotional finale and a farewell that was entirely dedicated to her mentor McQueen, to whose memory and legacy she dedicated the collection.
Since then, the fashion world has had little time to speculate on a possible successor, but the choice of a relatively unknown designer is not unusual for McQueen’s parent company Kering. At the time of her appointment, Burton herself was only known to industry insiders, just like Alessandro Michele and his Gucci successor Sabato De Sarno.
Kering is currently going through a period of change. A lot is currently changing behind the scenes at the top of the luxury group, including the appointment of co-CEOs. Francesca Bellettini, the head of fashion house Yves Saint Laurent, was named deputy CEO of Kering, as was Kering’s chief financial officer Jean-Marc Duplaix. Bellettini was tasked with leading the various luxury properties through their next phase of growth. A responsibility that is now placed in the hands of McGirr on the creative side at Alexander McQueen.