India is a country with a complex cultural and historical landscape, but this fact seems to have escaped creative director Sarah Burton and her team at Alexander McQueen this season. A usual fashion favourite, McQueen’s latest collection falls short of the brand’s typical high standard of deliverance. Opting out of the traditional menswear runway show earlier this year as Burton was on maternity leave, McQueen debuted its imperial India-inspired SS17 menswear collection through a set of 26 looks shot by Swedish photographer Julia Hetta.
According to the McQueen team, the collection is a “journey” that has its roots in “1960s swinging London and moves to a dusty exotic world… where the palette and iconography is fully embraced.” And this “dusty” world is meant to be India.
Its usual stunning shows (Try googling McQueen’s Highland Rape), which flow from a place of genuine inspiration are but a memory while looking at this latest offering. The collection’s “antique silver maharaja nose and ear hoops” seem distinctly out of place on Caucasian models, and it appears that little research was done by the McQueen team on the actual definition and proper use of the very specific term ‘maharaja’. Perhaps the facial and hand jewellery adorned is McQueen’s attempt at outdoing Givenchy’s jaw-dropping face jewellery from its Fall runway show.
Taking what appears to be the easier route, the collection was shot in England; the majority of the looks have white models, and it features paisley, a particularly unimaginative leopard print, and “a print of hummingbirds in a misty Indian landscape in daylight and twilight colour-ways.” The storyline, according to McQueen’s head of menswear design, Harley Hughes, is “a ’60s guy, in London, going off travelling and immersing himself in imperial India”. But where specifically in the very diverse India this “immersion” takes place is never specified. Unfortunately for McQueen, it appears as though the collection would have greatly benefited from further research and editing.
While the collection was clearly not thrown together, it lacked the consistency and awe of a typical McQueen offering. Of course, there were standard McQueen characteristics present — sharp tailoring, Savile Row wools, and a variety of styles from evening wear to street — but it left more to want. One begins to wonder if the same resources had been provided to a more motivated designer within the same theme, the end product might have been significantly more moving. After all, India is far from “dusty” and has a lot more to offer than just paisley and leopard prints.
Abid Haqueis a writer based in Washington DC