BURTON SARAH
B , BRAND AND FASHION DESIGNER
SARAH BURTON IS A BRITISH STYLIST AND THE RIGHT ARM OF ALEXANDER MCQUEEN. SHE BECAME THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF THE BRAND AFTER THE TRAGIC DEATH OF THE DESIGNER.
Sarah Burton (1974) grew up in Manchester, her father is an accountant, her mother is a music teacher. She completed a basic arts course at the Manchester Polytechnic. Consequently, she moved to London to study Print Fashion at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. During her studies, in 1996, she did a one-year internship with Alexander McQueen. She returned after graduation, and she was named head of womenswear design after just two years, in 2000. During this time she designed dresses for Michelle Obama, Cate Blanchett, Lady Gaga, and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Sarah Burton with Alexander McQueen
Sarah Burton with Alexander McQueenSARAH BURTON AT THE DIRECTION OF ALEXANDER MCQUEEN
After McQueen’s death in 2010, Sarah Burton was tasked with continuing the designer’s legacy. Having worked with McQueen for 14 years, Burton was the most suitable figure to continue the founder’s DNA. However, she slightly modified the aesthetics of the house while maintaining its iconoclastic codes. In fact, the designer has revived themes dear to McQueen creating collections inspired by beekeeping and the religious world. Burton oversees the creative direction and development of all the brand’s collections. From ready-to-wear to accessories for women and men, as well as the second McQ line.
Sarah Burton made debuted in September 2010 and presented her first Alexander McQueen women’s clothing collection in Paris. The show, inspired by nature, a strange foggy moor. It is not unrelated to the designer’s childhood landscape. These framed the mix of tailoring and wild patterns that characterize the brand.
McQueen by Sarah Burton, 2010
McQueen by Sarah Burton, 2010KATE MIDDLETON’S WEDDING DRESS
In April 2011, she designed the wedding dress for the Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine Middleton for her wedding to Prince William. Kate Middleton began admiring Sarah Burton’s work in 2005. Significantly, when she attended the wedding of Tom Parker Bowles, son of the Duchess of Cornwall, and fashion journalist Sara Buys, for whom Burton had designed the wedding dress. Middleton therefore chose to turn to her for her wedding. Mainly, for the beauty of her craftsmanship and for the mix of tradition and modernity that she knew how to create. The dress made for Duchess Middleton was inspired by Grace Kelly’s wedding dress.
Made of white and ivory satin gazar, the dress has a narrow waist and padded hips, a hint to the Victorian tradition of corsetry for which the Alexander McQueen brand has distinguished itself. On the bodice there is a delicate lace pattern handcrafted by the Royal School of Needlework, using the Carrickmacross lace technique. The profiles of the dress and train have been embroidered with the symbolic flowers of the United Kingdom: the rose, the thistle, the narcissus and the clover. Burton also designed the bridesmaid Pippa Middleton’s dress and the dress Kate Middleton wore at the evening wedding party.
In 2017 she also designed the wedding dress of tennis player Serena Williams.
Kate and Pippa Middleton during the wedding
Kate and Pippa Middleton during the weddingCREATIVE PROCESS
Before creating any collection, Sarah and her team discuss the designs and presentation. They think of ideas that give the right feeling and spirit. They go around the world in search of ideas and inspirations. The FW 2019-20 collection presented in Paris was her “most introspective”. Burton took her team to the North of England, where she grew up, in the Yorkshire area, to be in close contact with the factories, the looms, the rolling hills.
This resulted in evocative clothes such as the dress with loom heddles transformed into fringes of rustling sequins: the sound they produce recalled the noises of a factory in the hour of greatest activity. In other garments, scraps of fabric became embroideries; press studs are used as ornaments; symbols of northern cities such as the Leeds owl, the Blackpool seagull, the Liverpool cormorant wrap a flowing lace skirt; and tailored jackets with asymmetrical drapery proudly display the “Made in England” label. Burton’s clothes combine fragility and functionality, historical legacy and projection towards the future, formal elegance that interfaces with a fiercely wild and punk side.
THE GOODBYE TO ALEXANDER MCQUEEN
On Septmber 2023, Sarah Burton says goodbye to the brand after 26 years. The designer dedicates her last collection for McQueen, presented at the Paris Fashion Week “to the memory of Lee Alexander McQueen, whose wish was always to empower women, and to the passion, talent and loyalty of my team.” Naomi Campbell closes the runway, wiping away a tear.
Burton has given no indication as to her next move. Her departure from McQueen raises the question of whether she will continue to work for Kate Middleton, a relationship that has strengthened since the royal wedding in 2011. For instance, Burton designed a coat for the Princess for the Queen’s funeral.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Burton was also awarded the Order of the British Empire for her services to the British fashion industry. Moreover, the much-decorated designer won the Walpole Award for British Luxury Design Talent, the Harper’s Bazaar Woman of the Year award, the Designer of the Year Award at the British Fashion Awards and in June 2019 she received the CFDA International Award.
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