Alexander McQueen - Resort '25

For his first Resort collection as creative director at Alexander McQueen, Seán McGirr dug into English history, unisex styling, and a Velázquez portrait for inspiration. The collection was presented as a lookbook and shot at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, England, a grand country house that was once the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth I. With the house’s geometric moulding and elaborate fireplace as a background, the models cut powerful silhouettes in their suiting and (faux) furs.

Drawing on English school uniforms, McGirr played with proportion and colour, offering deep oxblood blazers, denim peplum jackets, and shirts with oversized lapels. Touches of romanticism also pervaded, with a flowing white dress and poetic blouse breaking up the more structural pieces. High collars peeking out from jackets acted as oversized callbacks to the starched shirt points of regency-era style, while sleek leather pieces were foils to paperbag-waist trousers.

The most instantly recognisable of inspirational sources, however, was Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650). Whether printed on asymmetrical draping or encrusted with crystals, the use of the painting harkened back to artistic and religious history. Notably, however, the reproductions of the painting focussed not on the subject himself, but rather his red robes and the letter in his hand, pulling focus away from explicitly religious connotations and directing it toward the kind of grandeur that makes both locations like Hatfield House and McQueen collections so cemented in English culture.

See the full Alexander McQueen Resort '25 collection below: