McQueen fall 2026 review.
Paranoia, perfection and pretty little baby doll dresses fit for horror chic heroines: McQueen creative director Seán McGirr brought an unusual mashup of striking 1960s couture, Victorian inspired details and perverse tailoring to the label’s latest lineup for fall 2026. The Irish designer was appointed in 2023, but McQueen’s fall 2026 collection may have been his most divisive yet; riffing on classic but subtle McQueen-isms while also strengthening his own language that defines a new era of modern, wearable McQueen.
McGirr has a talent for designing fashion in the round; seeing one-dimensional photos of his work online doesn’t really do it justice. The fall 2026 McQueen collection further solidified that. Was that a sculpted, moulded butt on the back of a extremely tailored mini skirt? Why yes. A 10-foot-long ribbon trailing from a suit jacket with hulking cuffs? Of course. A sculpted, feathered sleeved bolero over a sheer sculpted lace dress and low-slung bumsters were editorial-leaning but still looked like something an adventurous dresser would wear out in the real world.
Models wove throughout the atmospheric warehouse venue, which was decked in diaphanous sheer beige curtains for the occasion. Each model lined up on a veiled raised platform; some of them conjuring up visions of Sharon Tate or Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. As the final model took her place, the curtain dropped to reveal them all. The audience gasped–were we in for a Voss moment? It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as an original Alexander McQueen show, but then again, nothing is. It still conveyed a striking theatrical element that we have yet to experience in McGirr’s work until now, which was really interesting and we’d love to see more of.
The show notes described the collection as, “exploring a psychological tension between interiority and exteriority; performance and paranoia. Individualism under an unwavering gaze,” and McGirr also looked to Todd Haynes’s 1995 film, Safe as inspiration. The final hooded gown covered in a sea of florals and the micro mini babydoll gowns worn with bejeweled masks were highlights–combining ethereal femininity with a satisfying kind of darkness the world is craving right now.
