Seán McGirr Took McQueen Home Before Walking Away

Seán McGirr arrived at McQueen in October 2023 with one of fashion’s least forgiving assignments: succeeding Sarah Burton, whose 26 years at the house included 13 as creative director after Lee Alexander McQueen’s death. His early collections deliberately shifted the atmosphere younger and rougher, pulling on archive references while bringing punk, nightlife and contemporary London culture into the frame.

Kering’s statement now signals another reset. CEO Luca de Meo said the group wants a “bold new direction” rooted in McQueen’s tailoring, creativity and rebellion, while the house says a successor will be announced soon. The change also comes during a broader restructuring that has included store closures and an effort to reposition McQueen as a smaller, sharper luxury proposition.

There is an almost cruel neatness to McGirr’s final collection. Only weeks earlier, Spring 2027 had brought McQueen back onto the London Fashion Week schedule for the first time since 2001. Seán McGirr spoke before the show about London as a place of freedom and about finally bringing together everything he had learned from nearly three years studying the house.

The collection pushed deep into McQueen territory: Gothic darkness, compressed shoulders resembling furled wings, gowns disrupted by anarchic details and a renewed collaboration with Huntsman, reconnecting the house with the Savile Row tradition where Lee McQueen himself had learned his craft.

What appeared in September as a homecoming now reads as a farewell. Within a single hour, two experiments at two very different houses were over; McQueen’s ended just after Seán McGirr had finally brought it back home.