McQueen returns to London for the first time in three years
The 20 September show is the house’s first in its home city since 2023 and its first in London under Seán McGirr. McQueen decamped to Paris back in 2001.
Alexander McQueen will return to London Fashion Week with its spring/summer 2027 collection. The show is set for 20 September and will be the first time the house has shown in its home city under creative director Seán McGirr, appointed in 2024.
“London has always been the heart of McQueen. This city has a unique, almost physical energy that runs through the entire history of the house and continues to inspire everything we do today,” says McGirr. “Returning to London Fashion Week lets us reconnect properly with that spirit and with the creative community that defines both the city and the house.”
McQueen last showed in London for spring/summer 2023, Sarah Burton’s “First Sight” collection at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. A year earlier the house had shown on a rooftop in east London, inside a bubble dome.
The British capital is more than geography for the label. Lee Alexander McQueen founded the brand in 1993, and it was in London that his most talked-about shows took place: Highland Rape (autumn/winter 1995), The Birds (spring/summer 1995), Golden Shower (spring/summer 1998). The 1998–2001 run staged in a warehouse on Gatliff Road — No. 13, Eshu, Voss, What a Merry-Go-Round — is still regarded as the designer’s most influential London stretch. McQueen moved to Paris in 2001, after investment from Gucci Group.
“McQueen’s return to London Fashion Week is a significant moment for the house. London is where our story began, and it remains central to our identity,” says McQueen chief executive Gianfranco D’Attis, appointed to the post on 3 June.
For fashion week itself this is a major win. In recent years London has lost many of its most influential British houses — McQueen, Stella McCartney, Victoria Beckham — leaving the schedule resting largely on Burberry, Erdem and a crowd of small young labels. “One of my first tasks as chief executive of the British Fashion Council was to bring Alexander McQueen home,” says Laura Weir. “Few have shaped global fashion with such force, imagination and cultural impact. McQueen’s return is a statement of confidence in British creativity at its most fearless and recognisable.”
The backdrop is commercial: the Kering-owned brand is being restructured under group chief executive Luca de Meo, with job cuts and D’Attis’s appointment. Details of the show are being kept quiet, but for McGirr a strong London outing is a chance to be heard away from an overcrowded Paris schedule.