London, United Kingdom

 “I am interested in immersing myself in the environment in which we live and work, in London, and in the elements as we experience them each day,” states creative director Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen’s homecoming S/S 2022 womenswear show.

Thanks to Chilean architect Smiljan Radić and ES Global along with creative agency Gainsbury&Whiting, British fashion brand Alexander McQueen returned home, to London, with a magnificent spring/summer 2022 catwalk show in the clouds, inside its very own fashion bubble, with views across the capital from the top of a car park.

The show, titled “London Skies,” was informed by the cloud-filled skies which Alexander McQueen creative director Sarah Burton and the McQueen team see from its studio.

Alexander McQueen’s creative director Sarah Burton purposefully chose this venue, underneath the “unpredictable skies” of London.

Radić’s bulbous organic cupola resembled a giant cloud, greenhouse, or biohazard bubble.

The bulging bubble, lined with concentric circles of chairs, reflected the influence that the London metropolis played in Burton’s vision for the Alexander McQueen S/S 2022 collection. 

The transparent cloud-like Radic-designed bubble of the McQueen tent was pierced with brilliant sunshine at the beginning of the show—the perfect backdrop for dresses printed with photographic images of sunrises and dazzling blue skies and clouds which the McQueen team had captured from the studio balcony.

Structural specialist ES Global worked closely with Radić to oversee the conception and fabrication of the show space.

The physical space was constructed using a transparent paneled membrane, tied to a curving circular pipe at its base. 

The membrane was supported and constrained by a net of steel tensile cables that stretched between channels of the bulging membrane.

The interior of the show space bubble was strategically placed at the rear of the rooftop location, allowing guests to walk around the space and take in panoramic views of London’s skyline

ES Global built a domed transparent structure that was inflated and constrained by steel cables to appear as though swelling from between its cable net.

The bubble shimmered, with the late afternoon sun trying to peek through the clouds, exposing all aspects of London’s skyline, from the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf to The Shard and the Gherkin.

The Alexander McQueen brand returned to the runway atop an eleven-floor multi-story in Wapping this week, and many are hailing it as the brand’s homecoming.

“That led me to storm chasing. I love the idea of the McQueen woman being a storm chaser, of the qualities of storm chasing uniting the passionately individual community of characters wearing the clothes,” explains creative director Burton. 

“They inhabit the same universe and the clothes are inspired by and made for them. Storm chasing is not only about the beauty of the views but also a sense of mystery and excitement—about embracing the fact that we can’t ever be sure of what might happen next. To give up control and be directly in touch with the unpredictable is to be part of nature, to see and feel it at its most intense—to be at one with a world that is bigger and more powerful than we are.”

“There’s that sense that the sky is ever-changing—this constant change that’s uncontrollable. Some days it can be kind of very calm, a very beautiful dappled sky. And then this kind of ferocious sky,” she observed. 

“And I’ve been thinking about what we’ve all been through this constant feeling that you don’t know what the next day is going to be. And how you have to just face it with bravery. The fact is, we’re not in control of the situation. Nature is more powerful than us. Sun, rain, storm—whatever comes, you have to just keep going.”

Project: Alexander McQueen’s Spring Summer 2022
Architects: Smiljan Radić and ES Global
Client: Alexander McQueen’s
Photographers: Courtesy of Alexander McQueen