Seán McGirr’s SS25 collection is a nod to McQueen’s innovative Banshees show, which featured Vogue employees as models

In 1994, the unlucky Lee McQueen was living in his sister’s ground floor flat on a public housing estate in Dagenham, still unsure of what a career in fashion could offer someone like him. “I never wanted to be a fashion designer,” the 25-year-old told his old friend John McKitterick. “I wish I had become a war photographer or something.” Writer Dana Thomas recreates this interaction in her 2015 book Gods and Kingsciting the “introspective” and “honest” mood he experienced while creating his third collection. And yet – a war photographer? McQueen was existential about many things in life, but he was also a famous nut. After all, this is the same person who spread rumors in the press about the presence of Michael Jackson and Karl Lagerfeld at his performances.

Namely: McQueen lied to a reporter from Daily Telegraph about the origins of the same collection, telling them that it was influenced by Luis Buñuel’s 1967 film Beautiful days in which Catherine Deneuve plays a housewife turned prostitute dressed in Yves Saint Laurent. “Of course – nothing so predictable,” wrote fashion historian Judith Watt in her 2012 biography of the late designer. “Instead, he turned his attention to Celtic and Scottish culture sidhe beans or “banshee” – a fairy from another world who can be seen washing blood from the clothes of people who are about to die. McQueen presented the work at the Café de Paris in central London to a group of “real women”, including a heavily pregnant skinhead and Isabella Blow (who managed to convince FashionTiina Laakkonen and Plum Sykes are also scheduled to walk.)

McQueen’s cocktail dresses were stained with blood-red, degraded fabric, plaster breastplates were placed over loose T-shirts, and weakened military jackets were cut at the waist to expose the flesh. Bumsters – already McQueen’s signature – became “c***sters”. Journalist Mark C. O’Flaherty described the collection as “a wardrobe from the best Derek Jarman film never made”, adding that McQueen “displayed the individuality that would usurp Westwood’s place as Britain’s greatest living couturier by the end of the century.” expert.” Not everyone – especially former members of the magazine who were not asked to model – agreed. Lakonnen told Thomas that the designer hitchhiked with the British Fashion during Paris Fashion Week later that month and was shocked how the team simply ignored McQueen, dismissing him as “a loser who doesn’t deserve any attention”.

McQueen’s Banshee collection was better received in the States. This was partly due to Derek Anderson – head of PR firm In The Mix – who invited the designer to repeat his presentation in New York for the North American press that did not come to London. This time, McQueen upped the ante and wrapped one of his models in clear packing tape and clear string. The room took its breath away and within days Anna Wintour, André Leon Talley and Hamish Bowles passed through the designer’s showroom to borrow clothes for Fashion. It’s quite easy to imagine McGirr’s tulle-trimmed boomers, sinister jackets, and crystal vine-embellished outfits inspiring the same desire. It takes time to gain recognition, and as Watts says of Lee McQueen’s original Banshee, “the all-important third collection is the one that the industry always checks to see if he actually has the talent and the ideas.”