Stitch-School were thrilled to be part of the Alexander McQueen inspiration for the Spring Summer Womenswear collaboration shown in Paris on October 1st 2019. Providing five Stitch-School tables in the London and Paris studio for the McQueen community to stitch the collaborative garment worn by Stella Tennant.
‘Mid-way through Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2020 show, held in Paris yesterday evening, walked the British model Stella Tennant. She wore an ivory gown: on it, scrawled by hand, a teeming mass of human figures. The show notes elaborated – the “dancing girls” had been sketched by Central Saint Martins MA students during a life drawing class, held at the educational space at Alexander McQueen’s recently opened store in London earlier this year.
From afar, those figures appear to be drawn directly onto the fabric – with marker pen, or paint – but look closer and each line, mark and smudge had been stitched by hand by the McQueen atelier every person on the team contributed, inspired by the work of The Stitch School which was founded to reconnect young people to the art of embroidery and encourage community making. It seemed to encapsulate Burton’s work in recent seasons at McQueen: her near-inimitable ability to take extraordinary technique – comparable only to the most venerable of Parisian couture houses – and meld it with the homespun, the hand-touched, the human.
At the end of the show, Burton took her bow alongside her entire design team. The London Contemporary Orchestra – made up predominantly of young musicians, its music composed by Isobel Waller-Bridge, sister of Phoebe – played on. “I love the idea of people having time to make things together,” Burton said. “The time to meet and talk together, the time to reconnect with the world.” Anotherma-
Backstage Burton pinpointed an embroidered dress, modelled by Stella Tennant, as the embodiment and inspiration for this idea. Explaining that it had been the result of a mass crafting experiment, she said the dress should be credited to staff from right across the company since everyone from the press team to the interns had been involved in its creation. “We set up looms and everybody from the whole McQueen offices had a go at embroidering” she said, “everybody came together to do it.
“There’s so much noise in the world this was about having a moment to think and be as a studio and all work together on something. It was a calm time to work together and be with our own thoughts” she said.
This idea of connection was central to the show which went on to celebrate crafting communities across the British Isles’s rich textile industry. A collection that was rich in heritage fabrics stood as proof. Evening Standard
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