McQueen Returns to Official LFW Schedule After 25 Years

W Magazine reports Alexander McQueen staged its first show on the official London Fashion Week calendar since February 2001, bringing Seán McGirr's homecoming and the skull motif back to town.

W Magazine reports that Alexander McQueen's spring 2027 show, staged Sunday under the vaulted ceiling of the undercroft at Lincoln's Inn Chapel, was billed as a homecoming. Although the brand had staged runways in London as recently as 2022, all of those took place off the official calendar or during Paris Fashion Week; the last time the label held a slot on the London schedule was February 2001. The Sunday-night audience included Alexa Chung, Emma Corrin, and Caitríona Balfe, who once walked the house's runway.

The timing is the twist: W Magazine notes that creative director Seán McGirr is nearing the ever-scrutinized three-year mark, a milestone that historically sees a designer either exit or reaffirm their commitment to a house. Instead of letting the moment pass, parent company Kering — under new chief executive Luca de Meo — hired Gianfranco D'Attis from Prada as CEO over the summer, and his first order of business was bringing the runway show back home to London.

W Magazine describes a collection built on texture: pleated, undulating frills on a one-shoulder minidress, skirts peeking from peplum jackets cinched tight at the waist, metallic florals sewn onto jacquard or netted fabric, and a feathered pannier-like waist on an oil-slick sheer lace gown. McGirr's own design language shows in sharply shouldered jackets with low-slung trousers, translucent corsetry on wispy gowns, face-obscuring lace collars, and cheekily short, voluminous skirts.

The comeback theme ran through the motifs as well as the venue. W Magazine points out that the final London Fashion Week collection from fall 2001 was among the first to fold the house's now-signature skull into ready-to-wear, and McGirr — a self-declared member of #TeamSkullPrintRevival — brought it back at its most dazzling: as embroidery on a bedazzled netted dress. He also recruited artist Shaun Leane, a longtime collaborator of the late Lee McQueen, to create precious-metal jewelry and sourced two of Leane's past house headpieces from the fall 1998 Joan and fall 2004 Pantheon ad Lucem collections.

The homecoming arrives at an inflection point for a house whose founder's originals now command serious money — W Magazine notes a McQueen spring 2010 piece owned by Naomi Campbell just sold at auction for over $1.5 million. McGirr framed the stakes himself in his show notes, writing that the collection celebrates "London's ceaselessly stimulating and transcendent power" and that the city's "uncompromising attitude and subversive spirit sit at its very heart" of the London-born house. The show sits within a broader reshuffling of legacy houses, with ELLE Canada describing a Milan season now defined by new-generation creative directors at Moschino, Gucci, Marni and Fendi.

With the three-year mark looming and Kering's repositioning strategy now visible on the runway, W Magazine's account suggests McGirr's second act in London sets the reference point for how the house moves forward. Fashion-month watchers will next turn to Milan, where ELLE Canada flags Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo's debut at Moschino, sophomore shows at Gucci, Marni and Fendi, and Dario Vitale's newly appointed role at Emporio Armani — with his debut not due until early next year. London's season, though, ended on a house reclaiming its birthplace.